I don't really know hoe to start ; it's kind of a complex problem. Anyway, sorry for taking up anyone's time, my 7 year old daughter is attending a private bilingual school in the Zurich area. 2 years ago, when she was in Kindergarten, she attended a trilingual school (Lipschule), that taught the kids Chinese, English and German in a total immersion way; that is the children learned the language by listening and trying to speak i; there was never an analytical approach to the language; it was all about trying to communicate, to understand, and to repeat what one had heard.She learned so much, she was so good at understanding and speaking all three languages!
But ever since she started in her new school where the emphasis is now on spelling, grammar, on a very analytical look at language, she has lost everything! She used to be able to speak in complex sentences in all three languages, and it's all gone now. She is learning spelling rules in English and German, but she is struggling with it. Why is it that she was so talented at foreign languages in kindergarten, nd nowit has all gone away? Would it have been possible to preserve it?

Let us agree that nothing is impossible.

And I don't think it is late to get back your daughter into what you would like her to learn.

How old is she now ? and is it a must to learn the three languages now together ? or it can be for example 2 prior or even one then something comes after.

I would like to share with you this link as well, has some helpful info.

http://giftedkids.about.com/od/gifte...e_learning.htm

She didn't forget, she is repressing it. Because she adapts to the expectations, struggling or not struggling, that's not the question to her.
Bi- or trilingual teaching is by nature different from foreign language. Is the new school following a multilingual curriculum?

Thanks so much for your answer!
It's not that I want her to learn three different languages. It's just that it was so effortless and normal for her. And now in second grade of elementary school, she is truly unhappy, she tells me that she wants to leave school, reminding me so much of Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer. I'm just worried that school can be demoralizing for some kids.

The kind of school is fundamental: Is it a multilingual second grade school?
If not, why not continuing in the same multilingual system?
If you had no choice or if other reasons made it a very smart choice to change school system, why not accepting the price for it in terms of language teaching?
I am not accusing you of anything, no doubt you want and do the best for your child... I am just fishing for more background info.

Thank you again for your input!
I think, the key issue is the transition in teaching from an intuitive approach, as it is customary in kindergarten, to an analysis of language, spelling, grammar, which is typical of grade school. I'm just quite puzzled as to how much seems to get lost and I am not sure whether it is due to this different way of conveying language to children, or whether it is a more personal issue. I'll try to get to the bottom of it!

Does your daughter still have plenty of opportunity to speak in both languages in a more informal setting?

For example, a music class or sporting group or anything that just happens to be taught in one of the languages would mean she could again just immerse herself in the language by concentrating on what she is doing rather than what she is saying or why she is saying it.


Could it be that your daughter is suffering a sudden lack of confidence in one (or both - you don't say what her mother tongue is) languages, with the burden of having to be able to explain or show why she is saying what she is, rather than just saying it? Part of the problem is that as soon as kids start formal schooling, as opposed to Kindergarten or any kind of preschool, the issue of assessment raises its ugly head, and for assessment to happen there has to be something that can be easily assessed, thus the grammar, spelling etc.

Maybe your daughter needs to feel like she can regain some control over the learning process, or at least have what she can already do validated in some way.

I know with my own daughter (also seven and in the first class in the local school) that she is very happy to do a variety of reading/writing activities at home if they are presented in a certain way and almost by stealth. I teach her English at home (and music) and she goes to a couple of different activities each week in Swiss German. She is very happy to go to school each day and do everything in German, but we definitely take a softly softly approach when it comes to her reading in German at home. But as soon as it all starts to seem too onerous or she feels like she is out of her depth she starts to panic, at which point I back right off for a while. So it's very much a gradual process, which I think is fine.

Don't know if this is of any help to you! Why don't you go and talk to her teachers (both English and German) and see what they think. They must surely be experienced with different learning styles and with multilingual children!

Learning to spell, and learning grammar is hard! Do you remember what it was like the last time you had to learn something new? Like how to do a Swiss tax return, or how to ride a unicycle? Maybe even learn French?

We expect a lot of our children, and then wonder when they don't learn as quickly as we would like. To learn to read and write two similar but different languages is also difficult- a sound in German is spelled differently than the same sound in English. It is confusing.
Then the letters look the same, but sound different in the different languages.

I am under the impression that it might be easier to learn Hebrew or Chinese and German at the same time, for some people. It is easier to tell them apart.

and/und, school/schule, street/strasse..

In time, of course she will learn both languages, and maybe needs a little more home help- read with her 5 minutes a day- maximum 15 minutes- let it stay fun, and quality time.

In saying that, when my daughter showed signs of trouble dealing with reading and writing in 2 languages in her first year of school, I chose to concentrate on one. She still speaks 2 of course, (we speak English and German in the house), and can read both languages now (aged 8), but has "no extra pressure". Part of the issue was also that "everything was work, and nothing was fun". And kids understand things differently, and are motivated by different things than grown-ups. And they also need time to be kids.

Childhood comes but once a lifetime.

Apparently when children first learn to speak they do so by imitating and in English toddlers will usually use correct grammar but then seem to regress and loose those initial skills as they learn to make up their own sentences and extend their use of vocabulary and grammar independently. I assume that this happens with other languages as well. It may be that your daughter is going through this stage. So what you see as a step backwards is actually a sign of maturity and natural progression in language acquisition.

We call that the metalinguistic level. Intuitive approach is fine with children, but there is a point when language is a system that has to be explicitly mastered. There are also spelling lessons in English class in America, there are conjugaison control in French school etc. The goal would be not to lose anything and just add on previous skills. But at that age, they react very defensive against change. Any change. Imagine when you replace worry-less life with put-some-thoughts-into-it-life, they hate it by definition. The gain of metalinguistic skill is not obvious to them at that age... until they experience the joy and fulfillment of mastering the whereabouts of language. That can take a while. Changing the language setting so dramatically added stress to it and the discomfort of the new situation does the rest. Children love comfort and easy life, understandable but a shame at the same time.

Multilingual children: Make their LIVES multilingual, not just language lessons at school.