Hello all

We will be moving to Baden from Cambridge in Feb next year as husband has a job at the PSI. He is French, I am English and we have a 2 yr old who we speak our respective languages to (we mainly speak English together but are trying to speak more French for my sake). Our daughter is chatting happily in English and a little bit reluctantly in French but we figure this will sort itself out when she is older.

We would really like to encourage her to learn more languages, so I would like to take her to some groups in the Baden/Zurich area where she can play with other children who speak French and/or German/Swiss German. Does anyone know of any suitable groups, and is this a good way (in your opinion) to introduce another language to a child?

Cheers,
Laura

Pending the responses by more knowledgeable members, I thought I'd welcome you to the forum first.

We have a bunch of threads on multilingual kids, Multilingual Toddlers, for example, I m sure there will be some handy info in there. Check out the search function, and as above, welcome here.

Yes! This is an excellent way to introduce your child to another language. At her age, learning through play is important, where the language will develop in a fun, interesting, natural way, alongside other learning.

We moved with our then 3 and a half year old son who was bilingual French/English (father French, I am British but as we were living in the UK, we spoke only French at home and he learnt English in full time daycare).

He went to the woods playgroup and an indoors playgroup three times a week for the first 8 months, before he went to Kindergarten, and to be honest, it was not really clear that he had learnt anything very much. Certainly he could only say a very few words. Things picked up at kindergarten, although it took another 6 to 8 months before he started saying anything very much more than yes and no. This is very typical. They just observe and take it all in, and this observation period can vary wildly in how long they take. My son was very loud and talkative in English and French and it broke my heart to see him become reclusive and taciturn in the German environment. But then it just seemed to happen, and 5 years on, I continue to get complaints from the teachers about how he talks all the time in class .. so be careful what you wish for!

Interestingly, research shows that being exposed to more than one language at a young age does cause the brain to develop differently and for there to be far more activity in the part of the brain dealing with language processing in a multilingual child than in a monolingual child. We thought that being already bilingual seemed to help our son in acquiring his third language, but that was only a thought.

Playgroups and mums meetings are a great idea, but be careful to not expect too much too soon. They need a certain critical mass of language exposure before it starts to add up to very much and for this, you might need to wait until kindergarten - or not - it's very individual.

my son, born here and now almost 2.5 years old is close to being trilingual (I'm french speaking english with my swiss husband, he is grand-mother speaks schweizer-deutsch to him). I spoke French from day one with him, my husband English as we converse in English together, and as mentioned his grand-mother and the krippe he would hear Swiss-German. He first spoke Swiss German to us at the age of roughly 16-17 months, it took him some time to speak to us both English and French, but now he has it, even though there are words he only knows in one language, hence he mixes up the 3 languages when he speaks. When exposed to a German-speaking carer at a new krippe, when we moved, he at first didn't get it...but now understands her perfectly. it took him about 5 monthstoget accustomed to the new language.

Re. playgroup, check out in Baden if there are any "spielgruppe" or Pfäddi (scouts type of groupe). there is also the group where you take them to the woods whether it rains or snows...waldgruppe. A point of reference for you, is the mutter and vater beratung who you can go in your town (free) where you might find ideas and will meet other mums...
There is one gathering on Wednesday morning in a starbucks in oerlikon zh via the gymboree club (check their website www.cogmo.ch).

I am no expert as I have no kid...but I spoke about this with my swedish teacher the other day.

She said - did you know the average languages a kid in ghana speak is 4.1 languages...so keep giving them free languages when they are small.

So based on that, go for it!

The problem we have and which stress us a lot is that our 3 years old who speaks 4 languages can't make real proper sentences. She is mumbling more than anything else with clear words in there. So while we do understand what she is saying, others don't.

And to be honest, it stress us a lot!

In Baden, thanks to ABB and ALSTOM there are many British and French families, that might help maybe?

Nil, the four languages is not the reason for mumbling. A lot of children the age of yours, have not yet developed clear speech whether they are multi or monolingual. Not every child is speaking well at 18 months. It is also within the boundaries of normal, to not be able to speak full sentences at that age.

With regards to children who are learning to speak in more than one language, it is common for them to either combine words from more than one language, or to come to a halt half way through a phrase because they have not yet learned the word they want, in the language they are using at the time. As the vocabulary enlarges, and as the childs cognitive development continues, they do separate out the languages (sorry, I have done a quick paper shuffle, but can't find the research paper I wanted to refer to)

But, if you do have any concerns about your child being able to pronounce words clearly, or to just get words out, then there is no harm in seeking expert advice for guidence and reassurance.

Already 2 years old and only speaking 2 languages? Surely you should be pushing her to write her doctoral proposal before anything else?

Clearly, the cult of Dragon Parenting has arrived in Switzerland.

Children are smarter than you think. Just leave her for a few hours each week to play with a bunch of kids who speak neither French nor English. She'll be completely silent for the first week and then she'll start interacting with them. probably to berate them for not having completed their doctoral proposals yet.

Markmadsen, what is "Dragon parenting?" I have not come across that term before.

Amy Chua's book Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother created something of a stir when it was published. (I'm sure the OP can tell you all about it.) It promotes the kind of extreme hothousing of children's education that leads to questions like the one that started this thread.

Commonly and colloquially on the Internet, such approaches are termed "dragon parenting". I have no recollection where I originally came across the term, sorry.

Some. Some are soaking up for a year and quietly watch, without making any noises whatsoever. Depends on the child's personality. Can it be frustrating to parents? Surely can.. I wouldn't label those frustrated folks who have to deal with tantrums of very shy children who try to say what they want yet lack the vocabulary, the whole social aspect of it, artificially induced semi autism...the reality is different for everyone of us. Pushy parents? What if they just feel for the child and want her/him to be comfortable asap before the child realizes they are being a tad excluded? It really does pan out at the end, sure it does, but for some kids and parents, it does not have to be so easy nor fast.

I think you're overreacting quite a lot here.

There's no extreme hothousing going on here - the child speaks two languages already because the parents speak different languages, not because of some plan to produce a linguistic genius.

The child is then going to live and grow up in a German speaking area, so playing with German speaking kids is a fairly natural thing to want. It's also far from unreasonable to also see if there is the opportunity of playing with other children who speak English and French in the meantime.

This is not teaching the child Chinese or Sanskrit for the sake of it, or enrolling for baby calculus or violin lessons. Just playing with kids who speak the languages she knows, or the language of her new home.

I don't think you're seeing any overreaction because there is none to see.

Now disagreement, yes, you're seeing that. Because I see no need to pressure a child to do what the child would do naturally anyway.

Cambridge is a very competitive parenting environment, by the way. Taking the context into account when interpreting the OP is useful.

Being taken to play with other kids is not being pressured. Some radicals would even say play was fun.

It's barely worth the effort for such an unverifiable and practically meaningless generalisation - but the entire family, baby and "context" will be moving to Baden soon. I seriously doubt they will be trying to impress your alleged Cambridge "dragon parents" from ~1000 km away.

Naturally is questionable..there are kids that naturally learn so slowly, since they are battling more they can handle at that time, and it is a good thing for their folks to want to help them out, expose them more, or less, pace it, facilitate, in order for their children to be comfortable and at ease with their language skills. More so, at the age when it really does matter, and in a foreign country where they want to make friends asap and feel at home fast. Not all kids are naturally linguistically confident. Nor efficient. It can sometimes really isolate them, so why not help out. I, in fact, don't find your hints at over ambitious, academic parents helpful at all, it's too bad. Nor do I find the assumption that parents coming from Cambridge have to be expecting their child to be a genius. Why all this? Stereotyping much?

I worked hard on facilitating my child's multilinguism, since we had some serious social issues coming from being non verbal for too long and thus isolated socially, despite all the immersion and social activities, etc etc. Pacing it, for example, was great. The opposite than you are assuming, not pushing, but slowing it down, not having child over stimulated and overwhelmed, so they can focus, absorb and get confident to speak. I guess, slowing things down would make me an underachiever parent. The paradoxical thing is, part of my doctoral proposal is actually this , and I am no Cambridge mama.

Thanks for the explanation of the term. Isee no grounds for applying the term to parents with a bilingual child, wanting to expose their child to the language of the country they are moving to, in a play situation.

From personal experience as a kindergarten teacher, I have come into contact with many young children from around the world, who are absorbing three or even four languages during these formative years. Without exception, these children have been proud of their linguistic ability and are happy to share their skills with other children, whether it be a greeting, a sentence, a song (I have had classes who have enthusiastically taught each other to sing "Happy Birthday in six languages including Chinese) or a whole chunk of language.

As Musichick wrote, not all young children are going to find it completely easy, and a variation in confidence is apparent, as is normal within any group of individuals. However, given that the poster has asked about play groups for her young child, I see no problems, only advantages. Switzerland is one of the great countries for bringing up a multilingual child.

Thank you all for your responses, it is reassuring to know that many people have been in the same situation as we will be and have positive experiences to speak of.

I did have to smile when reading the comments regarding 'Dragon Parenting', I hadn't realised what an emotive issue this can be. Since we will probably be in Switzerland for the long haul, I just wanted my daughter to be able to make some friends and to hopefully learn some of the language before she starts kindergarten. I would also like to help her French as none of her French family speak English and as I mentioned in the original post, she is reluctant to speak it. Also, what I didn't say was perhaps more selfishly, one of the main reasons for seeking local playgroups is for me to meet other parents as moving abroad with small children (I also have a 9 week old) is a very scary prospect, and one that many of you have been through!