meauxna

Which was exactly my experience in Spain in the 70s.. and why I think that ESL classes for anyone under the age of puberty to be a waste.. kids pick up language *that* fast.

snowbunny

Melanie Griffith and Antonio Banderas have a daughter called Stella. Melanie's daughter with Don Johnson, Dakota, was born in Austin while Don was filming a movie here, and Antonio has been her de facto dad (stepfather). Stella looks to be a real star (pun intended) and looks a lot like her father -- she's also bilingual.

Sally Redux

Yeah - you see if Mexico was an advanced country people probably wouldn't be risking their lives to get out.

Redlippie

Geez..imagine forcing kids to actually learn the language medium that is taught in the school of the country they're living in.

Pity I was forced to learn in a language different from my own as a kid

ukelaine

They are not stupid. A few years ago there was a big blow up. It seems a lot of Americans moved there and brought these beautiful beach front homes and then something happened and they lost the lot. Seems foreigners, or, just Americans are not allowed to own land in Mexico. I suppose they forgot to tell the Americans.
They just got ousted out of their homes, i don't even think they could even get their stuff out.

Elaine

tamms_1965

Americans are able to own land in Mexico and many do. There are different ways to title the property though than people do here though. Sounds like something else happened to cause the flight.

snowbunny

There are many countries which have laws that tightly regulate land/home ownership by non-citizens. In such a case one should work with a reputable LAWYER to iron out the contracts.

Roland Hulme

Seems ironic the same standards don't apply here!

A French friend of mine has just moved to the US with her two year old - who only speaks French. Yet he gets no special treatment or schooling. Meanwhile, our illegal immigrant neighbour (the one who drunkenly parks across my driveway) gets to send his two year old to a special English intensive language school for Spanish kids courtesy of the taxpayer.

Wait. That's me!

Roland Hulme

I've heard of this sort of thing in Spain. Worth checking the expat pages for it. The government can decide to claim your property and you either have to hand it over (and receive nothing in return) or cough up the property's value - even though it's YOURS and you paid for it.

Happens more than you'd think.

snowbunny

There's got to be a critical mass of speakers of a given language before you can start a class.

Secondly, most early childhood education programmes are for at-risk kids. Who do you think has better parents and a chance at a good education, the two-year-old French child, or your two-year-old neighbour?

The idea is to help the children no matter how irresponsible their parents.

tamms_1965

Sounds strange. If it's language-driven only, the French child is entitled to the same. At my school, we have no ESL students whose first language is Spanish. Our ESL students speak Russian, Hindi, Danish, Swedish, Farsi (and these are just my students). Not all of them need special programs though, because they all SPEAK English quite well, and an outsider may never even know they're not native speakers. THey usually need help reading/writing English.

I have a student from Norway (in U.S. since this summer) and England (in U.S. 4 years) in the same classroom and you would never be able to pick them out from the kids born at the county hospital down the street. Not even a hint of an accent now.

ukelaine

Apparently there is another problem with American owners of land going on in
Playa Azul or rather Americans who thought they owned land

Elaine

ukelaine

I think as your area is mainly white it will be harder for you to grasp the situation in other areas where it is now whites as the minority and English slowly becoming the 2nd language.
I found an old year book for a local school from 20 years ago and the difference in the people is overwhelming.
The second language taught in most schools in the World is English, which is why your foreigner students dont need the help as others may do.
There is no way a student who only speaks French is going to get any special treatment at our school, unless she wants to learn Spanish first

Elaine

Yorkieabroad

That may be true if you stay within the confines of multinational companies, top/mid range hotels and tourist restaurants, but to be honest, outside those areas, on the street even in Beijing or Shanghai you're going to drown without at least a basic grasp of Mandarin and/or the local dialect. To be fair it is changing, particularly with the university educated younger generations, but I think theres still a long way to go before you could say that you could get away with just speaking English for any length of time. Its a couple of years since I was in Beijing and they were just starting a programme to teach basic English to people likely to come into contact with Olympic visitors this year - taxi drivers, waiters etc, but from what I understand from friends over there, its a struggling programme - probably the only part of the olympics that wont be meticulously planned and executed...wonder how well the london cabbies/waiters will pick up mandarin/spanish/etc to make the 2012 olympic visitors more welcome A few basic phrases sat varying volumes should be enough - "Stadium not ready", "Trains cancelled", "Meat pies off" and "not my problem guv" should cover most eventualities...

tamms_1965

I was being sarcastic.