Is it worth sending my child abroad for a year? Vale la pena enviar a mi hijo al extranjero por un año?

Muchos padres se preguntan si vale la pena el coste de un año académico en el extranjero para mejorar su inglés u otro idioma extranjero.
A continuación os explico las ventajas e inconvenientes justo en el momento cuando mi hijo va a pasar un año académico en Inglaterra.

Many parents wonder if it's worth the cost to send their children abroad for a year to improve their language level. In this posst, I'll explain the pros and cons to help you make up your mind.

For children who are already bilingual English speakers with a native-speaker parent. 
In Marc's case, he's already a bilingual native English- Catalan speaker, and the aim is three-fold:
1) Consolidate his English knowledge and push it even further by studying all the subjects in English in an English school.
2) Get a deeper knowledge of his father's culture and that of his relatives in England.
3) Get a feeling of independence and  experience living in another country and meeting people from different countries. He'll also get to spend time with his grandmother and his cousins' family.

There is often a difference in the level obtained by children being raised in English or other languages by a minority language parent. If the child hasn't obtained a mastery of the language, then point 1 above is going to be just as important as point 2, and could be a turning-point in  the child's language mastery.

For children of non-native parents

The main objective is going to be point 1 above, and there is no better substitute to living and studying abroad to greatly improve a child's language level.
It should be taken into account that a minimum level is required to avoid frustration, and that should be  First Certificate B2.2. Anything above this level is much better for the experience to be more enjoyable and satisfactory.

Getting the child to a C1 Advanced level before sending them abroad should be a motivator for both the child and the parents.

The other points will also apply. Experiencing a new culture first-hand and becoming independent for a year are priceless and will have a lasting effect on them.

I'd defintely recommend the full year so that the child can get the feeling of becoming part of the school community and the language development is obviously going to be greater.

 If you're not sure if your child would do a full year, a single term might be a change to try it out, and is better than nothing.

En resumen, un año fuera no tiene precio a la hora de mejorar su nivel de inglés, pero, es siempre mejor tener un nivel C1 Advanced ó más antes de irse para poder aprovechar de la experiencia y así evitar frustraciones. Sin recomendaría un año escolar por encima de un trimestre para que se note mejor la diferencia de nivel. Además, el niño tiene la oportunidad de sentirse parte de la comunidad de la escuela. Un trimestre podría ser como una prueba. Si va bien, pues, la próxima vez podría hacer todo el año. Aunque, si el niño realmente no quiere pasar tanto tiempo fuera, es mejor no obligarle.

So, the million dollar question is; is it worth the cost? We''re talking about a boarding school in the UK here. If you can afford it, it's really a no-brainer. Hopefully, the child will also agree!!

There are cheaper options, which I'll discuss in a future blog.

(12 years old) August 2019. Does your child use these phrases?

Marc was 12 back in May and his language becomes more adult-like all the time with extremely native phrases. Many of these sources are from youtubers and gamers, and Star Wars probably! I don't remember  using a lot of these. So, make sure their input is rich and varied.
There is a massive difference between the language of a native and a non-native speaker child.

There's no way I could've passed on these type of phrases to my son if I'd tried to do this in Spanish.

Has your bilingual child used any of these phrases?


he gets really cranky!   
What a conundrum, 
I'm in a bit of pickle .... bamboozled (he liked this new phrase)
 This chicken isn't as good, not by a long shot 
Gave her a run for her money. 
Stop rubbing it in my face 
Growley (our cat) is smelling the bag like there's no tomorrow.

Bet "U dude perfect" (a youtuber) has made a video with those ... 
I cant wait to sink my teeth into this chicken. 

heed my warning 
I'm over the moon  

touch wood this place won't go on fire.  
regarding your high heels,  you are too tall for your midget body 
I'm just double checking. 
ok, kill 2 birds with one stone 
I'm in a real pickle  
I gobbled up my sandwich  
He got screen captures of the wins 
I slept in till 10 
I had like a Red tinge in my eye.  
A piece of cake 
You are all old and cranky (talking about myself and his mum)

You can still get earth Vader and stuff 
Search up on Internet  (an American preposition in this case)
General Grievous is incredibly buggy 
Guess I'm pretty good at my job, huh? 
If you tikle me I'm going to shriek and probably break a window  
The rollercoasters really take it out of you 
Ouch. I stubbed my foot  
A wee bit (of food) 

Joke

Mum,  why did u buy me 2 left shoes? Because you've got 2 left feet 

What's the secret?

You can only start using these phrases if you're getting rich input. That means feeding in words and phrases yourself when they occur to you and then repeating them. Also, get them to watch English-language films and programmes as much as possible and youtubers in English as well. 

Update / actualización March 2019 . 11y 10 months

11 years and 10 months.
This is an update that's long overdue!
I've been keeping a note of his Language,  especially native English expressions and the input sources.

Language and expressions. It used to be easy to keep track of his Language Use, but now there's so much I just jot down examples that are noteworthy.

The following are the ones that I managed to note down:
EXAMPLE SENTENCES

These brands come up with the wackiest ideas

Phoskitos . Tumbler . Barril. 

Bet you dude perfect has made a video with those those 

I can wait to sink my teeth into this chicken. 

This chicken isn't as good, not by a long shot

Gave her a run for her money.

Stop rubbing it in my face

Growley is smelling a bag like there's no tomorrow. 

How did you get on with your cousins? 

Messed up crazy baby things. 

A sights for sore eyes

Phone me, I don't keep track of time

It was sick! 

This trick is so old-school. July 

I unloaded everything single-handedly (in supermarket)

August.  I'm lolling at everything.  

What in the World was that?! ( In surprise at result in video game)

It's gonna be epic! 

I haven't got a bull's notion! (An Irish expression he remembered )

That old guy was going up and down the street like there was no tomorrow. 

I'm in quite a bit of a pickle

I'm shedding skin 

Gravity went haywire 

My Play Station is busted

Speak of the devil, I found my mobile

Language Use in general.
He speaks fluently at a bilingual native level on all topics with occasional pauses for some words.

Input has moved now to YouTube. Especially Australian gamer ones who give tips on improving skills on Fortnight or Battlefront for example.

Apart from films in general,  he watched American TV cartoon series for his age on Netflix. With me he watches Star Trek Discovery, The Orville and Elementary.  They all have scenes which are borderline appropriate . This is where we could enter into a discussion of Internet use and the appropriateness of the content.
ADVICE

As usual, it's important to plan as much time together in your schedule where you can have language rich interactions. This sounds very formal! Just talk as much as possible .
The one area needing work is writing and spelling still. And the school is trying to help in this respect.

Actualización Agosto 2018. UPDATE August 2018 11 years and 3 months

Hago un resumen de los progresos de Marc y algunas ideas basadas en mi experiencia sobre input y calendarios y el tema del internet.
Here's a summary of Marc's progress and some ideas based on my experience about input and use of calendars and internet.

Regarding language, I've focussed here more on some of the more idiomatic uses of English that seem to be more and more frequent and mark the difference between a child learning a foreign language, and one acquiring it as a bilingual native from a native parent. I find that if I don't write the words down immediately I forget them, so plenty of omissions.
Here are some of the (very few) examples I've written down since April:

"These brands come up with the wackiest ideas."
"Bet you "Dude Perfect" has made a video with those games." (a youtuber) "I can't wait to sink my teeth into this chicken."  
"This chicken isn't as good, not by a long shot .""It gave her a run for her money. "
"Daddy, stop rubbing it in my face."
"Growley (our cat) is smelling that bag like there's no tomorrow. "
"That old guy was going up and down the street like there was no tomorrow. "
"How did you get on with your cousins? "
"They're messed up crazy baby things."  
"A sight for sore eyes." 
"Phone me, I don't keep track of time."
It was sick! (meaning amazing) 
"This trick is so old school."  
"I unloaded everything single-handedly." (in supermarket) 
" I'm lolling at everything. " (using LOL as a verb) 
"What in the World was that?! ( In surprise at a result in a video game )
  "It's gonna be epic!"  
"I haven't got a bull's notion! " (an Irish phrase he remembered when playing with the words, 'notion', 'motion' and 'devotion' .
There is still 'cross contamination" between the different languages. It's normal amongst consecutive native bilinguals/trilinguals and nothing to get worried about!!!!!
I haven't written down many or remembered them, but they do come up. Sometimes he mixes language phrases because it sounds funny!

In Catalan: 
"Vas a arruinar la historia." (using 'arruinar' translated from English, "ruin the story", instead of 'estropear'). 
In English:
"I need to put it (the mobile) to charge. " I explicitly corrected this as lazy language.  Correct options are: "I need to charge my phone." I need to plug in my phone (to charge it). 

Between Spanish and Catalan there is the usual language mixing which most people don't seem to worry about overtly and is not my priority. 

LANGUAGE INPUT. (EXPOSURE)
This is the first summer since he was born that we haven't gone to the UK for the summer (for logistical reasons). That means I've had to organize my schedule to be with him when I've been working and he's been in our holiday village. 
Organizing your time
I've mentioned this before. Try and plan in specific times in your diary / calendar when you'll spend time with your child, and oblige yourself to do so. 

If I wasn't able to get back to the village, we spoke by phone or video call once or twice a day, and now we're started texting each other on whatsapp. 
Mobile phone
I've got him an old iphone 4 with a limited data package so we can keep in touch and when he's on his own or with other kids in the village.
INTERNET
This is a double edged sword. On the one hand it is a practically limitless resource for language. On the other, a lot of the content is age-inappropriate. 
This is what Marc has been doing. 
Youtubers
He's become addicted to watching mostly game youtubers explaining strategies to improve scores on the games. Some of them I've listened to use adult language ....  They are from a variety of countries: the UK, Ireland, the USA and Australia. 
Youtube videos. 
These are a mix of multi-interest videos: 
Animals, sports, some TV series, some science facts, some music videos. At least 90% in English. 
A lot of different ones in fact. My rule is that it's better to watch videos in their original language version, even if that's Spanish. Last week we changed from watching an American series about a "Cat trainer" in dubbed over Spanish to finding the original American English version. 
Films
I've always had a rule about seeing original language version films, but decided to relax the rule for the sake of family harmony and avoiding stupidity! We went to see The Incredibles 2 in Catalan in a cinema in Vic. There's no original language cinema there. Earlier in the month we saw a film in English at the Icaria Yelmo cinema in Barcelona, which does have all the films in the original language version. 
READING 
Marc read his first adult book earlier this year on his own. A spin-off Star Wars story. 
Over the summer he reread another Stars Wars book, "The Jedi Academy", and right now we're reading two comic style books together: "The 6th June 1944" about the D Day landings,

and one about the Siths (more Star Wars!).

The secret is to be consistent and maintain a language rich high exposure environment.  
 Let me know how you're getting on in the comments. 
All the best.

UPDATE : Januaray - Easter 2018 / Enero - Semana Santa 2018

Summary First quarter 2018 / Resumen  primer trimestre 2018

This is a review of Marc's language and learning for the first quarter of 2018.


School
A boy from England joined the class in January just for this term. His mother is Catalan and speaks to him in that language. The family have moved back and forth between Catalonia and England over the last 15 years, and are now settled in Bath. The idea of coming here for the term was to give the children extra experience in a Catalan school and get an immersion in Catalan and Spanish.
Agora also does 30% of the classes in English.
Marc became his buddy for this term and they spoke to each other in English.
The term in the country of origin is an excellent option. However, it can be very costly, especially if you do it through an organization. To cut costs, the cheapest way is to find low cost accommodation and go to a state school.  Obviously, if you have family in the country, that will save on accommodation and food  bills.
It works out more economical to do a full academic year. With an organization such as New Link, the 9 months can cost between 13-15,000 euros, and includes everything except flights and extra spending money. It's a big investment. Children generally do this year away when they are 14. 

This Easter, in the village where we stay most weekends, Marc met a boy who also lives in England and has a Catalan mother. He speaks fluent Catalan, but said that he can't really speak Spanish well.
Marc also complains that he finds Spanish "strange" despite doing classes at school, some programmes on TV, and hearing his mother speak to me.

At school, this boy learns French and Italian. The languages depend on the availability of teachers.   Again, with Marc he spoke in English as they'd met previously during the summer.
Marc is comfortable speaking in English with children who come from England even though they might speak Catalan due to speaking in a natural English and in an English accent.

I've found that spending time in the heritage language country is a key factor in the child mastering the language. Once again, if you have family in the country, it's worth taking advantage of this and  having the child spend extended periods of time there.


Language update
Errors and how to deal with them
Marc exhibits total mastery of  English for his age, taking into account that he's trilingual and in all the languages there is some 'contamination' or 'code switching' (the preferred term in linguistics).
He uses idioms all the time, and makes spontaneous plays on words. He uses all the tenses perfectly now, even "wish". "I wish you wouldn't tell me off all the time."  "I wish it were Sunday", etc.

Whenever a mistake comes up, I point it out. For example, 
Marc: "We ended out playing football. "
Me: "We say "ended up, but you know that don't you?
Marc: "Yeah, we ended up playing football."

Normally, these repetitive errors are erradicated. If the child doesn't get enough exposure the errors won't go away, so it's worth pointing them out in a 'matter of fact way'. There's no need to make a bg thing of it.

We've been focussing on Spelling, which is his weak point. We're working through Carol Vorderman's 10 minutes a Day Spelling Ages 7-11. The goal is to finish it before is birthday in May. And his birthday present will depend on it!! We're also be working on Vorderman's English Made Easy for 10-11 year olds, which isn't "easy" and includes malapropisms and Spoonerisms!

Regarding reading, I wanted him to start a Harry Potter novel, but he doesn't fancy it. Instead, he's started a Star War's novel called "Death Troopers", which is a gruesome tale about zombies aboard a spaceship that's adrift. It's the most advanced book he's read so far, and new words are coming up, for example "whack" or others that he didn't recognise in written form"throughout", which I'm sure we've used before.

Don't limit your child's English to just speaking the language. Being literate is also important to make the child's language richer.

UPDATE for 2017. Connected again. Progress and Plans

Después de un año sin poder entrar en el Blog he encontrado la forma de hacerlo.

En esta actualización hablo de sus progresos como siempre, las fuentes del idioma, influencias americanas y ¡como planificar la semana para estar con tus niños!

After a year without being able to get into the Blog, I’ve finally found the way to do it.

This is a brief update of the last year with the usual tips and learnings for other parents, both native and non-native.

UPDATE

The biggest change I’ve noticed over this last year is Marc changing from child to older child both cognitively and behaviourally. There are many subtle clues in the maturing process, in the complexity of language and its use, social interaction and becoming more autonomous (finally).

Examples of languages

The difference between a monolingual native and a bilingual native is that there’s always going to be an influence from the two or three languages. It’s a trade-off that’s always worthwhile. There will nearly always be the main strongest language which will be the language of the place you live.

I hear cross over language in English and Catalan that’s often because of direct translation.

In Catalan “ una carta vermella” (a red card in English) instead of “targeta”, or in English “How is it like?” instead of What is it like?  

His English is complex and native like in both language use and pronunciation.

Language examples: a wobbly tooth, I scraped the back of my hand

Expressions: He’s is bloody tall; Don’t get me wrong… ; She’s gonna fricking gonna fall off her perch (American euphemism), I was like a sore thumb at a finger party (American expression and new for me!).  It won’t be OK, it’s Murphy’s law. It’s lashing it down in Terrassa (raining hard. An Irish phrase I use) The list goes on and on.

The higher the exposure from both the native speaker parent(s) and other media, the richer and more complex the output language will be.

At school this year I’ve asked the English department to push him further, especially his writing skills. He’s already completed a long essay in English and we checked it together. The main area to work on is spelling and that’s going to be our objective till Christmas.

Planning language exposure

Some parents might think that planning to be with your child to give exposure to a language is somehow too scientific. You can look at it as planning to be with your child(ren) and that will help them speak the language better! If you’re raising your child in a minority language where you live, it makes sense to keep in mind language learning opportunities and keep exposure as high as possible as this is the only way to increase language level.

Weekly Planner

As I’ve said before having a calendar where you plan times to be with your child is really useful and can make sure that you prioritise your child(ren) over work for example (when possible). Instead of sitting at your desk you are obliged to organise your time to see your child.

In my case I try to do half the school runs. Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings and Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. That means I spend an hour each morning with him and several hours after school. I can plan in activities to do together such as reading and games or looking at interesting things on the internet in a café after school or visiting shops or going 10-pin bowling for instance.

You can also plan in phone or SKYPE calls if you’re not going to arrive in time to see them.

Because there’s a huge difference between growing up in the 80s or 90s and now in the two thousand and teens. Access to technology and internet has revolutionised everything. The struggle for parents now it seems is managing time spent on devices (mobiles, tablets and computers) as well as video games. This has substituted to a large degree keeping kids away from hours of television (my case in the 70s and 80s). Further to this point, this year, Marc has started using a tablet in the classroom.

At the same time, and as I’ve repeated over the years on this blog, technology can play a crucial part in helping parents bring up their children speaking another language. The distant culture and language can be imported into the home via internet in a way that was impossible up to the end of the 90s. 

Regarding technology, here are a few things I’ve noticed:

1)      The Filmon TV app  no longer connects through Chromecast. Even the dedicated Chromecast app doesn’t work. This is a known problem and they are “working on it.” This is a nuisance as casting programmes onto the TV means we watch programmes in English together, even if it’s Match of the Day or X Factor.  There are also children’s programmes here, so I hope they get it fixed.

2)      Netflix. People have been talking about this but I only got it this summer 2017. There is a huge offer of films, documentaries and TV series. They can be seen in their original language with a choice of subtitles in different languages. There is a whole section of films for children and all programmes have an age appropriate warning.

Marc likes the American sitcom Jessie (very American), and we select films and documentaries to watch. Normally we watch an episode of a series per night or part of a film (not all of it). This means there’s input every evening. I would definitely recommend this.

  

Life at school and American influences

Last year (2016) there was a group of 6 American boys that went around with. Of these 6 only 2 are at the school this year. The result of being around them was that his English became influenced by the Americans.

This was noticed by his cousin and husband who visited this April.

 The influence was apparent in intonation patterns, such as questions without auxiliaries: “So, you are going out tonight?” And vocabulary “This sucks/stinks”. “We all met up at recess.”

 It has to be said that there’s a lot of exposure to American language and culture in Britain and Ireland in general and this does influence the English spoken there.

Although Agora International School is trilingual (Catalan, Spanish and English) rather than just an English-speaking monolingual school, many foreign parents send their children to the school even if their level of Spanish is low.

One of the American children had come from an American school near Barcelona, where Spanish is taught as a foreign language. At Agora, many subjects are taught in Catalan, but despite this, the kids seem to cope, and parents are happy for their children to get immersed in a foreign language before returning to their countries of origin. I haven’t noticed any traumatised children!

American Input

Marc gets a lot American English input from many sources. When children are younger the CBEEBIES on the BBC gives a lot of choices in British English. And later on, there are programmes for teens. But for Tweens, we haven’t seen anything we like so much.  TV series: having graduated from Sponge bob and similar he’s watching series such as Jessie. We’ve started watching the new Star Trek series Discovery on Netflix. So, we have a new episode plus the ‘After Trek’ programme that discusses the episode every week. Yep, a bit nerdy, isn’t it?!!   

Documentaries. It’s possible to find age appropriate documentaries on Netflix. We watched on about the projects to get humans to Mars.

British English input comes from watching Match of the Day that has highlights of the English football league and some talent shows such as Britain’s got Talent and the X Factor.

Internet. Youtube. A huge variety of videos in English ranging from tutorial ones for certain games, e.g. Minecraft, to funny ones, e.g. about animals to clips from series “American Dad,” and others that are age inappropriate. Access to the internet by children through so many sources is a massive challenge for any parent these days, and one we’re looking at right now.

Video Games. Minecraft (just weird music and noises!), Star Wars Battlefront, Moto GP. I’ve set all the games to English.

Films. Practically all the films or movies we watch are of American origin. And there’s a multitude of choices on Netflix.  

Books: Captain Underpants, The Wimpy Kid, Horrid Henry…

For 2018 the plan is to graduate to the very British Harry Potter and other more grown-up novels to bring his reading skills up a level.  

Now I'm back and connected I'll be updating this blog on a more regular basis. 

The best of luck. If you have any questions or need any suggestions let me know.

        

Up to 9 years old May 2016 - Hasta los 9 años mayo 2016

Summary . This is an update of activities and language till the end of May 2016, which includes a look at reading material, games, TV and a look at how to schedule language routines and input into your week and year.

En esta actualización hasta finales de mayo 2016, hablo de lectura, juegos. TV y como crear un calendario de rutinas e inputs linguísticos cada semana y año. 

OUTPUT

As Marc is getting older his language is getting more complex. He's able to play with language more, including imitating voices and accents. He loves imitating Yoda's way of changing the word order of his sentences, known as Yoda Speak. So, "you can learn to speak like Yoda" is rendered : 

"learn to speak like Yoda you can. placing the subject and verb at the end of the sentence. 

As you would expect, use of conditionals and irregular verbs is getting nearer to perfection. 

His use of idioms is increasing, for example, "you look tired Daddy, why don't you have a snooze or get some shut-eye." or "It's a piece of cake."  

If he doesn't know a word, he asks. In Britain's Got Talent, he didn't know the word "overshadow". When teaching the words, try and give more examples. It's always funny when the children start using these new words and phrases; something which adults seem to do less frrequently. 

He still plays in English, and the only exception I've noticed is when he played in Spanish using a game he's played with a friend in Lleida. 

Any mistakes which are made are usually bilingual speaker errors, where a phrase or structure is translated literally. 

Regarding pronunciation, the only word that is resisting 'standardisation' is "worry", where he says the 'o' similar to the'o' in orange. It sounds a bit American.  I just thinks he likes saying it like that! 

In the video below he explains his dream house. He loves drawing, so I try to get him to label and / or talk about what he's drawn.    One of the buildings outside the house is labelled 'Strip'. He explained that this was a striptease place! I said, What's that? and he replied, 'a place with chicks dancing!!! And he didn't get that from me!! 

INPUT

Marc gets most of his English input from me, but also from classes taught through English at school, and he now has an American classmate who joined the school in April. They get on well and he recently had a sleepover at the family's house. 

Understanding American English isn't much of a problem as most of the books he reads and the programmes and films he watches are in American English. This wasn't a conscious choice, there's just so much of it!    

He is mad into Star Wars, and he now has all 7 Star Wars videos and several books about the films. 

And we finally gave in and bought him a Play Station 4. One of the games is Battlefront based on Star Wars, of course!  I changed the settings to English so all games and instructions are automatically in English. This is all part of the strategy to maximise input in the heritage language. It's easy to get lazy. 

I made a first time ever exception to watching cinema films in Spanish for his 9th birthday as we were in Vic, and there are no original version cinemas there. Refusing to go would have been radical at this stage, and a two hour film in Spanish doesn't diminish his English! 

As mentioned previously, he likes Minecraft and is learning a lot of vocabulary about building materials. A bewildering amount in fact. Check it out!

Here are the book series he's reading. He's on his 6th Wimpy Kid novel. One of the main changes this year is that he reads on his own, and the latest book he's received from school doesn't have any pictures!!!! We're reading this one together. 

Wimpy Kid series

Star Wars Craze

More Activities for Spelling and Reading 
Spelling Game
Marc told me about a spelling game he likes and we've been playing it; e.g. in the car.
One person thinks of a word, and the other person has to think of one starting with the last letter of the previous word and then spell it. Example:
Black -
Knight - K-N-I-G-H-T
Telephone -T-E-L-E-P-H-O-N-E
etc
Karaoke
These versions of songs are great as you can see the spelling -sound coincidence and comment on it. Marc was surprised by the way Charlie Puth in One Call Away sings the words "...got nothing on me, where 'me' rhymes with away. and "nothing" sounds like nuthang ! Very American and also a typical  way words are changed to fit a specific line in a song.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hx2ynaUaHY

Spelling and Reading in general
Words are everywhere and if you provide enough material in English, whether books, songs or games, even PS4, you can focus on certain words and their spelling.

ROUTINES AND SCHEDULES

I think that if you want to take the language input seriously, it's a good idea to explicitly plan in the times you're going to  be with your child AND speak to them. This way, you can keep a check on how much input they're getting. 

I write the times I'm going to take or pick up Marc from school in my diary.  In my case this year, I've been able to stick to Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings. I get to the school about 20 minutes early and we normally read a book together. We've been doing this since he was about 5 (I need to check back through this blog!) I pick him up on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I try to make the times we are alone together from 5pm-7.30 or 8pm . We normally go to a cafe/ restaurant such as Viena, and have a snack and a chat and then either read, do some drawing, do some exercised from the Carol Vorderman series or even help him with his homework, even Spanish or Catalan!  We treat them like foreign languages and discuss the answers and explanations in English.  And sometimes we'll go bowling or windowshopping together. 

At the weekends, I try to do as many activities in common with him as possible, walking, riding a bicycle, playing football or othe sports, shopping, bowling, eating together, watching films and TV programmes together.  I also give myself time to myself, otherwise I'd go mad.   

The point is, by explicitly planning you make sure you spend enough quality time with your child. It's a win-win and you can then plan when you're going to spend time with your partner and children too. It's important to spend time alone with your child as they need that language input.  

  

If you have any comments or any questions, please feel free to write. 

Marc becoming trilingual Update March 2016 - 8 yrs and 9 months

In this blog I'll talk about Marc's
1)current language progress
2) Different varieties of English  - American
3) Swearing ... again!
4) Reading and writing practice and what we've been doing with advice for parents.
5) Summer 2016
6) Cultural issues



1) Language update
As I mentioned in the previous blog entry, Marc is a de facto native bilingual Catalan - English speaker with increasing proficiency in Spanish.

The language points that I've noticed are

a) His correct use of the conditionals:

2nd conditional
If I were there
I wish I were
(notice the more acceptable use of 'were' and not 'was')
and the 3rd conditional
If I'd been there I would've done something else.

He hadn't been using the would've done, but this has 'appeared' and seems to be consolidated now.

B) Use of idiomatic language
He used so many phrases that he's learned from me, books and films / TV now that I've lost count.
When a new idiom comes to mind I use it and then see if he picks it up.
Example.
Dad: The cat's in seventh heaven, isn't it?
in the end he's also started using this. Children seem to take new phrases and use them  easily.

He makes the odd 'mistake' . The words begins by (instead of 'with') .   These are mentioned in a diplomatic way. "We'd say "begins with..." . so it begins with a 'B' , doesn't it?

2) American English
Just like the UK and Ireland. there is a lot of input from American English on TV and in films and even the books he's reading so, as you might expect, he uses some American words and phrases.
We learned the work 'recess' in a book (breaktime), and then later in the week, he used recess instead of break! He's also using US past participles:  'gotten' instead of 'got', and 'snuck' instead of sneaked.

There is a new American boy in his class who has joined from the American school, and Marc purposely used the American words he knows, e.g 'recess' , 'soccer' instead of 'football', etc.

This awareness of other varieties of a language comes from a parent's desire to expand the child's linguistic and cultural knowledge. If your child is living abroad, you can't expect them to speak in the same way as a child in the UK, so as long as it is English, then that's fine with me! BUT, I always point out the use of American words so that he's aware of the differences.

3) Swearing
While we try to limit and stop bad languge, as has been pointed out in other bilingual family books published by Multilingual Matters, adult language ultimately gets out. He gets some input from internet when he watches (sometimes unsuitable) videos, Minecraft tutorials for example and some films. Obviously, a lot of this language comes from me! Recently he's started using 'Jesus' and 'Jesus Christ'. It's inevitable and is a sign of language 'progress' and also a sign that the child is a language mirror and you are the linguistic role model.

4)Reading
This is where we've seen a significant moment; that is, he's started reading on his own, to himself, because he enjoys it. This is great for him and also a reward for me to see the years of (mostly) patient insistence on reading pay off.  Once, I even had to take the book away from him so he'd have dinner!!

The second improvement is that now he reads aloud with more meaning and not just repeating the words. See video. I also show you a way of helping the child when they don't know a word, in this case 'proposterous', and then we use it so that the meaning sticks.

The secret to reading, which I've set out over the previous entries in the blog, is to work through the levels, to reward the child, and to be regular and flexible. Recently, when he hasn't been in the mood, I've read a page and he's read a page. He also gets a model to copy. it's worked very well.
and use every opportunity to read when words come up in instructions and on internet pages.

Writing
I've asked the school to get him to write more often in class. The current activity is reading a book and summarising it. This, and spelling, and two ongoing areas to improve on.
The books we've been doing are very boy oriented as you'll see by the titles:

The Captain underpants series.
The Wimpy Kid series
He loves both and they are unsimplified as well as being American English.

We're also using two Carol Vaudermann books,
Maths Made Easy
10 Minutes spelling a day. We did a page from this this morning, and he really is improving, I'm relieved to say!

Summer 2016
For the first time in 3 years Marc won't be attending his cousin's school in the summer.
 I've decided to give him a break. However, after telling him he said he wouldn't mind going back again!! I've booked other dates to go with him to English including a visit to the Arsenal stadium. It doens't look like we're going to be celebrating anything there though.

He supports Arsenal and Barça and says he dosen't know which he supports in the coming Champions League match!! Sadly, after the first match he was teased at school because he also supports Arsenal and he's 'too English'. Children notice everything and can be cruel.

These are issues to be ready for on the bilingual journey.

AUTUMN 2015 - 8.5 years  -  OTOÑO 2015 - 8.5 años

Marc's Language Profile  8 years of age.

Language Proficiency

Due to 8 years of carefully planned exposure to English, Marc's level is trilingual native. 

He switches naturally from Catalan to English to Catalan without any effort.  

For the first time I feel that Marc is now a consolidated native English speaker. Between the ages of 7 - 8 children make a noticeable cognitive leap that is apparent in everything from their realtionships with parents, family and friends and language and learning abilities. Marc's main areas to work on are his reading and especially writing. His spelling is atrocious! This is why I'm putting even more emphasis on it this year. Mistakes he makes in English are very few and are usually Catalan translations in English as I've mentioned in previous posts.  To be fair if he doesn't know the word in English he asks. The same thing occasionally happens in Catalan when he translated literally a word or phrase from English. This is NORMAL for bilinguals, and not an excuse

 His weakest language is Spanish. He gets input from hearing his mother speak Spanish and Spanish television which is on when I'm not at home. In Agora, the languages are split 30% each between English, Catalan and Spanish and he is likely to improve his command of Spanish in the coming years. In some ways, you could say that he will learn Spanish without his parents. 

Accent

He sounds native in both Catalan and English. He speaks with his father's southern English standard accent. At schoool in England his classmates found it hard to believe that he's from Spain. 

Identity and getting to know the culture

In the last year he's become more aware of his identity. "I'm half English and half Spanish". Nurturing both cultural identities is important, especially for building strong ties with the minority/heritage language.  If children feels proud about the language they will be happier to speak it. And when they mix with people from the heritage language country, they will feel a connexion and feel less foreign which is his case. 

There is no need to 'hide' either identities related to the languages. you can be proud of both. This year we went to the UK twice and Ireland once.

What we did this year.
UK
In the summer after he finished school and had stayed at his cousins' house we went to Devon and Cornwall for a few days. We didn't meet many local people as it was full of tourists like us!! Here's a photo from Lands End. 

We spent another long weekend in Poole in October and then repeated Halloween in Dublin. The strange thing is that most of the time, Marc's Catalan aunt(11 years in Dublin) speaks to Marc in English and he replies in English. Halloween is a big celebration in Ireland and this year we took advantage of the occasion to visit friends, family and the housing estate and the houses I lived in there. I lived in Dublin for 11 years, and he's interested in seeing where I lived.



Non-Native speaking parents   - 
Padres no nativos que quieren hablar en inglés con sus niños. 
1) que tengas un nivel proficiency como mínimo. 
2) que fomentes una actitud positiva hacia la cultura del idioma
3) no dejes de hablarlo y no cambies el idioma. 

I know several parents who are non-native speakers of English who speak to their children in English and their children speak to them in English too. Quite an achievement that some native speaking parents do not even manage.
The idea of identity is more difficult in this case. However, it is still very important to foster a positive attitude towards the culture behind the language. If the parent has learnt English in the UK for example then learning about the UK and contact with the country will help to strengthen the emotional link with the language. Children, once they become teenagers, amy rebel and stop speaking the language as it might seem unnatural to do so. This will depend on the language level and the previous work on showing the positive aspects of speaking the language and link with the language country. And, if the language is a manjor once, it will also be easier.


It is also a good idea to ensure that your language level is high enough to start this life long project in the first place as this will be your communication channel. If you start mixing, the language will liely end up being lost or weakened. Also, you need to keep up your level by continuing to maintain contact with it and continue learning new phrases and vocabulary. The child can only repeat what it learns from you and any films or TV programmes that are watched.

PERSONAL CONFESSION
Although I love having succeeded in raising Marc in English, I would've have loved to have raised him in Spanish if we'd lived in the UK. I would've been more challenging and 'fun' somehow.
It's important not remember that if you're a native speaker in another country, the heritage language is one of the greatest gifts you can give a child.


READING AND WORK MATERIAL 

As mentioned above, I feel that Marc's speaking skills are at a native level for this age. However, he doesn't get as much practice writing and reading as he would in the UK.

THIS IS WHAT YOU CAN DO. 
The important thing is have a routine and a specific series of books in mind.

WRITING
For writing we're using Carol Vorderman's ENGLISH MADE EASY. some of the book is definitely NOT easy. so, we're using the 7-8 years old one which also builds confidence.

We previously used her SPELLING MADE EASY book. Due to the amount of homework he's now getting, I've had to narrow the choices.


I get him to write and spell as much as possible spontaneously. Fopr example  if  a new word comes up when we are talking I give him the spelling and get him to spell it back to me. It's a continuous process.

READING 
As I've mentioned previously, for young children, there are two types of books: those you read to them (harder) and those they read themselves or to you (easier).

READ TO THEMSELVES
The big change is that he enjoys reading and reads books in English on his own. He currently loves "the Diary of a Wimpy kid".  So this is his self-reader.

READ OUT LOUD
I get him to read out loud to me as I can monitor his progress. We've read Minecraft stories"Diary of a Mincecraft Zombie", and one of the Captain Underpants stories, which I read to him the first time.   We nomrally read for 15 minutes in the car outside the school when I take him. The latest is a  HORRIBLE HENRY book (we've also seen the film). Here's a recent  example (November 2015) . I'm trying to get him to read the sentences with meaning and use the puntuation marks properly.

READ TO THEM
The books you read to them are above their comfortable reading level. We read a non-fiction book, SPILLING THE BEANS on CHARLES DARWIN. There are other books in this series I'd like to read.   Now we're reading a comic from the Adventure Time series, which is different. This time we take it in turns to read the different parts.  He could also read this on his own if he wanted.
this book has a lot of American slang, so I also give him the British English equivalents.
The important thing is to choose books they are interested in to motivate them.

AT SCHOOL
I've also asked the school to make him write more in class and to give him a weekly writing task. So far, this hasn't worked. He is now allowed to read his own English novel rather than the too easy graded reader the rest of the class has to. It's an important concession and one that not many schools are willing to make. In my opinion having a native speaker child reading 'baby' books and learning colours and names of animals is demotivating and even insulting.

SUMMER 2015 8 YEARS OLD / VERANO 2015 8 AÑOS

SUMMER 2015

Once again we repeated the two previous years. I took Marc to Poole in the UK after he finished the Spanish school year and he went to his cousin's local state school.

He was put in his older cousin's class (the year above) as the school preferred him to go with his cousin and a teacher who already knew him. As this was only for 3.5 weeks it wasn't a problem and at the end of every school year the classes are more 'relaxed'.

He said he enjoyed the classes and was able to keep up. although being in a year higher made it more difficult.

When he's in Poole for the summer he often picks up phrases. This year it was 'literally', as in "we were literally there all day", or with 'actually and 'basically' all in the same sentence'. Actually he was literally beating all the other boys at football basically. The point here is that children only really pick up this language if they mix with native kids in the home country. Accent wise, he picked up less of a Dorset accent as his standard southern English accent is now very stable and assimilated.

As I've said in previous blog entries, any European citizen can send their children to a state school in the UK. The main problem is accommodation. If you can sort this out and combine it with a holiday, the experience is very worthwhile for the child, although the child must have a level that permits them to participate in the classes.

SCHOOL IN THE UK.  Should you or shouldn't you? 

The advantages of 3 or 4 more weeks in a UK school after Spanish school term has finished far outweigh the disadvantages. The linguistic and cultural gains are invaluable. The question is if parents are willing or able to make the 'sacrifice' to allow this to happen.

For the Irish option, due to the holidays there, you'd have to do the last week of August and the first ones in September.
Outside Saint Joseph's school in Parkstone, Poole at the end of June 2015 with his older and younger cousins.