Bilingual Experience With Children, Then Teens (not Toddlers)

[geovalin]

I read a lot of posts about the babies learning to speak in a bilingual or tri-lingual environment.

It helps, thank you.

Now I would like to ask you what happens later on.

1- Ability to speak different languages.

2- Schooling, results, prospect

To give an idea of what I'm looking for, let's share my own experience.

Linda is my biggest one. 10 years old

Speaking:

1- Khmer is her mother tongue, she speaks Khmer at home (well sometimes she skips to Thai with her younger sister who has the same background).

2- Living in Thailand since years, she 100% fluent Thai as well (Thai people CANNOT believe these girls are not Thai).

3- Being in a bilingual (Thai - English) school [as you know bilingual is definitely different from international], she can speak English and she naturally speaks to me ONLY in English. As she and me are not Native English Speaker, it's a kind of broken English. Well it's far better than most of our fellows (Cambodian and French) ability.

4- I'd like she begins French soon.

Reading - writing:

1- Khmer, nearly nothing. Could be a problem in the future.

2- Thai: same as all the Thai children of the same age

3- English, the level she has is far less than a Native English kid but it's encouraging.

Results at school:

Good, she's still at primary level

What about bi-lingual schools at secondary level in Thailand?

Cultural environment:

Too poor at my opinion because her strong point is Thai, unfortunately, at home, besides some TV programs, she has no access to Thai culture.

She has a piece of Khmer culture background thanks to her Mum but Linda does not feel Khmer so much.

Her access to western culture is also poor as I do all in French and not in English (movie, TV, reading), I cannot share with her.

Prospect:

Of course to be totally bilingual (Thai-Khmer) and nearly tri-lingual (+ English) is a must to find a job in the future, first of all inside ASEAN, but I'm not sure she'll want a job where she'll have to use this ability.

Please share your experience you had with kids who are now 12, 15, 18, adults.

Thank you

[Thailsacien]

Hi geovalin,

I don't have all the answers (and IMHO I think nobody have them), but I can try to share my own experience. As many of my friends and relationship, I grew up in a bilingual family (French/German-Alsacien) and have lived in a bi/tri-lingual environment (German and Alsacien are 2 different languages).

About your questions:

1- Ability to speak different languages.

2- Schooling, results, prospect

The ability to speak one or more language depends not only on the knowledge of the language itself, but also on the use of it (frequency, duration, etc.). You can have one or two mother tongue that you command perfectly, and other so-called "secondary" languages. The younger your learn, the easier it will be. At school, you learn the basics, some vocabulary, grammar (beuark

), etc.

Just like your "main language", you have to practice it to maintain and improve it. The "main language" is not always the native. I know many people whose native language is Alsacien (that's not German) and started to speak French only at 4-5 years, when they started school. Some of them have even frogotten their native language.

Another point I've noticed (thanks to my job as translator), the scientific, technical an general knowledge is language-independant. That means, that you can learn maths in French, Geography in English and Science in Thai, you will always be able to "convert" this knowledge it in another one of the languages you know. I play this with my daughters (7 and 8) on a regular basis.

3- Being in a bilingual (Thai - English) school [as you know bilingual is definitely different from international], she can speak English and she naturally speaks to me ONLY in English. As she and me are not Native English Speaker, it's a kind of broken English. Well it's far better than most of our fellows (Cambodian and French) ability.

I think you should not worry too much about "broken English". The accent is not essential. Just like in French : Montreal, Abidjan, Paris, Marseille, Strasbourg... where is the "right" accent?

For an English experience, just travel from London to Edinburgh and try to understand the name of this last city

.

4- I'd like she begins French soon.

I would recommend you to wait until G.10 (or M4 in thai) and choose French as a foreign language.

IMHO, it would be more advisable to continue to improve her English and Thai skills until the end of the lower secondary cycle.

French is a very difficult language and it could be confusing. I'm myself trying to emphasize English with my girls rather than French, but I think it's more easy to switch from French to English (difficult to easy).

Reading - writing:

Does she like to read ?

My youngest loves "Tintin" (now in Thai, but I plan to switch to English soon)

I plan to establish a kind of "reading-and-language schedule" at home:

Monday read an English book, Tuesday watch TV in Thai, Wednesday read a Thai book, Thursday watch TV in English, Saturday French movie (just ideas)

What about bi-lingual schools at secondary level in Thailand?

I've spoken about it with some teachers (english and thai) and I think at secondary level, you should switch to a monolingual school (English or Thai) and continue the second (and third) language as a foreign language. There are many things to learn and if your daughter is already fluent in 2-3 languages, she will continue to be fluent if she uses them, which should not be very difficult in Bangkok.

Cultural environment:

Prospect:

A lot to say about it.

General:

How does she feel about the languages?

When she watches TV, does she choose the Thai or the English soundtrack (if you have True-UBC)?

Maybe you should considere her own preferences too.

Good luck