CBANDY

Thanks livit. It is just such a hard desision to make. As i say, my daughter is only 2 so we have got time on our side. I would hate to go back and she ends up getting into the wrong company etc... but that can happen anywhere. What are you doing for work now? That is another big worry for me.

livit

I was in the wine industry.

Nothing glamorous, I`m a Maintenance Technician.

Got a better offer in a factory back in the UK.

If she`s 2 you`ll need to decide in the next few years as it will be easier school wise.

The UK isn`t that bad for the current situation, certain people just like over indulging their ego`s.

Jobs are being lost, but we still got 1.4 Million less unemployed than Spain, I`m sure both will increase this year.

It takes time to adjust, if you can succeed in Spain, coming back to the UK won`t pose much of an issue.

jdr

Act your age and quit the personal snidy remarks in all your posts about people that differ with your esteemed opinion.

Sue

Hey, hey everyone. Let's agree to disagree can we and get this thread back on track.

Thank you kindly

Sue

meauxna

Oh, I very much think they will. I always said that moving to Spain was the best gift my parents ever gave me.

I found parts of this so.. wow! Interesting!
Catalan is definitely a 3rd language.. it was not used when I lived in Spain (banned) and went to school; imagine my shock at how Barcelona had changed since 197<koff> nevermind.
At any rate, it took me a while to grasp the basics of Catalan.

My younger sister and I went into the schools at age 8 & 6.

Sister was put into speech therapy when we returned, because of our lovely Barthelona lithp! So I feel for your kids, but it will pass quickly.
Since I was taught to read phonetically, I find your example so interesting! They may have spelling issues for life; I have, but I put it down more to phonics than my Spanish.
We too got a little flack (mostly from the Canadian kids after a stop over there around the same age).. I think if positively reinforced, your kids can see their difference from the classmates as a benefit, not a negative.

Oops, agreed with you right to the end, but clearly, I turned into one of these.
Maybe the whole Spain thing wasn't so good for me afterall.


Nope, I take it back. I still think it was a defining event in my life. And I haven't turned out too bad, apart from marrying that Brit...

Lorna at Vicenza

That spelling thing made me smile as my little girl in Italy does the same thing.
Her spoken English is brilliant but every so often she'll write me a little note in English but with Italian sounds. She's 8. The last note said ....

"Mummi I luv yu but I am hungrai and I wont tu no wot iz for dinar."

I've started to make her read books to me out loud in English in the hope that following the words and sounds will help with spelling. We've also started sending little notes and postcards to family in England and the more she writes the same thing the more they become automatic.... I luv yu has already automatically become .. I love you.

cavecritter

My daughters 10 and after being in Spanish school for just over a year now, I have noticed her English slipping in both reading and writing. She reads or writes the words with Spanish pronunciation.

Im not too bothered by it at the moment as I'm happy shes picking up the Spanish but I have thought about teaching her English from 11 to enable her to do a GCSE in the subject at 16.

jdunbavin

Eleven is quite late. The early the better.

livit

From our huge experience far beyond anybody else`s here

(Spot the pun)

Most Spanish schools cope well intergrating immigrant children into the classes and helping with difficulties, lets face it govt figures show they`ve had too as there is a huge foreign influx in certain regions.

English now is taught far better than previously, since most graduates now travel abroad before leaving there studies and the greater spread of the English language throughout the world, they had too.

We didn`t teach much practical English to our kids in Spain, keeping to the amount of English that Spanish children were taught.

We felt it best not to confuse, at the time Spain was there home and the place they`d finish studying, Spanish teachers agreed this would give better results in the class.

If only the future could be predicted or at least secured, unfortunately as were young, we don`t have an easy retired lifestyle yet, our choices are more difficult and determined by circumstances beyond our control.

Either way in the short term and with some luck getting them back into the UK shouldn`t pose to much trouble.

We never considered teaching our children to achieve GCSE`s as the Spanish Higher Education is, I gather quiet tough, making a 16 yr old study for both seems an impossible task.

Kids tend to adapt far better to life than us so called adults, if only we could use child logic, the world would be a far friendlier place.

jdunbavin

I find it amazing that a Spanish teacher would advise not to teach too much practical English to a child. Particularly, to a child who has native English speakers as parents. Non English speaking parents spend a fortune in sending there children to Bilinguel schools or even just English schools.
I have bilinguel children. I have worked as a teacher in Spain for many years. Children do not get confused, learning another language is not too much for them, it good for them! Children can cope with many different languages. It is us adults that get confused! And the older you are in learning a language (even reading and writing in your own) the harderit will be!

Sharon B

We came to live in Spain nearly 3 years ago with our young children who go to a local Spanish school. I was advised by an English teacher (who taught us Spanish and was married to a Spaniard) that she recommended that we spent half an hour a day reading/writing English with our children. This is what she had done with her children. I suppose it all comes down to personal opinion and what you perceive to be in your childrens best interests. But we have noticed that the children do need this because their first language has been overtaken by Spanish and we had hoped that they would become bilingual. But with perserverance hopefully they will get back on track because they are still young enough to take this in their stride.

Lorna at Vicenza

I agree that it basically boils down to personal choice.

My kids were actually born in Italy and apart from me and a yearly trip back to England and sometimes a visit to our Italian house from an English friend or relative, their whole lives was built on Italian.

I had loads of conflicting advice and mostly from locals who didn't have a mixed langauge family - advice that I hadn't asked for either :

- let them learn Italian first and then start English.
- start English immediately, kids are sponges
- just teach them the basics in English likes colours and numbers.
- don't bother with English - they're Italian born and bred.

Their dad is Italian and spoke Italian.
I'm English and spoke English. Although I'm fluent in Italian it came much more naturally to me to cuddle, praise or scold my child in English. I thought it was important that they learnt English too. It would have been awful if they couldn't even tell my mum that they were hungry or thirsty.

The kids learnt both languages almost side by side, never questioned it and didn't struggle. For them it was very much matter of fact ....... mummy says ball and daddy says palla. We even turned it into a little car game sometimes and played ... if daddy says 'latte' what does mummy say?

I did find it a bit amusing and an eye opener one day when the nursery school teacher told me that when my 3 year old saw the painting stuff she clapped her hands and said "che bello - facciamo painting"

She didn't know the Italian word for painting as it was something that she had previously only done at home with me and not with anybody Italian and she just had the English word stuck in her head. I hadn't forseen that this might happen.

Of course that was only the speaking side of English .... now we are getting into reading and writing.

Sorry for some of the words left in Italian but I figured you clever people that speak Spanish would get the drift !

livit

Our decision was based mainly on the fact Spain was to be their first language, with Catalan a close second and English third.

Having said that conversationally their English and Spanish was pretty level, the man problem was the writing, spelling etc.

The advice we were given was that speaking the language is easier for children to learn, spelling though isn`t the same as the human brain can only learn one rule, followed by the other rule, ie there can only be one dominant rule learn`t.