One of my first concerns with moving to Caracas was the school choices for the kids. I wasn’t sure in which language I wanted them to be taught, but I definitely wanted the school to be accredited by an internationally recognized entity. This isn’t too much of an issue in the primary years, but I have seen too many children have to play serious catch up because certain courses did not translate correctly.
So, my choices for Caracas were two American schools and one French school. I knew the children would be exposed to Spanish regardless and since they are both in English only schools now, I considered not disrupting this in the transition. However, the American schools were insanely expensive
and the French school’s program is very similar to my daughter’s previous school and I think my son would easily adapt at his age.
So, after examining our choices, I am opting to place them in the French program. I had the opportunity to visit the campus while I was in Caracas a few weeks ago and it looks promising. My only concern now is that they might not get as much exposure to Spanish since we will mainly speak English and Haitian Creole with them at home. Hopefully, they will make friends outside of school, as well which will give them an opportunity to speak Spanish uniquely.
Would you have made the same decision if you were in my shoes? If you had to pick 3 languages for you or your child(ren) to know, which would they be?
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Thing is, you can't really pick. You can try to nudge the kids towards language acquisition, but it's going to be the external environment what determines whether it'll take.
So I'd do what you're doing. Sure, at some level Mandarin would be more useful than French, but good luck getting them to learn that above a phrasebook level, no matter how hard you try, without moving to China or Singapore. And maybe not even Singapore.
Thanks for the vote of confidence – sometimes I wonder what the heck I should be doing. You're right, I've had the thought about which languages are more marketable, etc., but my rationale is that maybe if they start learning other languages young it will help with their ability to continue to do so as adults. So, Mandarin isn't completely out of the question
i never considered language as a choice . they knew english and Tamil ( my mother tongue) and Hindi at home and with friends . only regret is that they never caught arabic since dad never spoke it much ( with him being away from saudi) and me being non-arabic in nature.
of course spanish they picked up at school. can't force languages.. it gets rusty whennot used
That's great that you encuraged bilingualism in such a natural way. I hear sometimes from parents who say they spoke their mother tongues to the children, but they simply answered in the dominant language (usually the one heard at school). The biggest challenge is keeping them fluent when they don't hear it as much. Now that we will be in a Spanish-speaking environment and the children will be taught in French, I am going to have to remember to keep English in the home. Otherwise, they will lose the fluency in that, as well.