Hi,
I have asked many questions about local vs international schools. Today I have a slightly different question. How many parents who chose to send their kids to local schools in Switzerland do not speak the local language at all ??

Mobeen

We have opted that way. I speak a bit of high German, hubby speaks none. Neither of us speak swiss German. We are both English mother tongue. Eldest in 2nd year kindie - very happy and good German
Youngest happy to go to swiss spielgruppe and krippe and starts kindie in August.

working OK so far

Caz

Do you mean that the parents don't speak the language, or that the kids don't speak the language?

Many kids turn up here and don't speak the language. Some parents prepare them for school/kindergarten by sending them to the local playgroup or cresh in the local language.

For school-age children there are DaZ classes (Deutsch als Zweitsprache/German as a second language) - extra classes that help non German speaking kids, learn the language.

The kids always learn quicker than the parents. Then its up to the parents to learn the language so that they can communicate effectively with the teachers.

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Our kids have been in the local school since June 2009. They have 4 hours of German as a second language per week. Both girls are speaking German well and understand a good bit of Swiss German (learned from their classmates). The little sponges are doing so much better than I am!

We speak English at home (as this is my only language at this point), but the girls have always been exposed to German with pre-school type picture books naming colors, numbers and common objects. My husband is German raised primarily in the states and this has of course helped immensely with their learning.

The first few months were frustrating for them not being able to communicate well with the other kids, but kids play together without much need to speak anyway. If you can stick it out past that adjustment period it is a great way for your children to really learn the language and develope friendships with children who live in your own neighborhood.

I feel we made the right choice for our family and I wish you the best of luck with your own decision - what ever it maybe.

When I was a child (7yo), my family moved to Okinawa. As my father was there on an "unaccopmanied tour" (only he was supposed to go), we were unable to get base housing so we lived off-base.

Looking back now, it is sort of a shame that we were able to go to school on base with other American kids. The Japanese I remember most are the songs and poems (and dirty words ) that we learned by playing with the neighbor kids.


Even so, with that in mind, after having lived in many other areas where there is a shared language, I think that another factor is equally important to language skills which is a common relocation background. This is probably fairly equally important for adults as it is for children so far as feeling "at home" goes.

I'm trying to think how to word it right but partly it can be seen here on this forum. This forum (and others like it) are important to us because it allows us to connect to other who on some level are "just like us"... we are far from "home" and at some stage of adapting to a new life. As adults we can (and obviously do) seek this out, children do not have quite the same options - they go where we put them to a great extent.

The times my siblings and I settled into school and social life most easily were the times we moved places where there were other families who relocated with some frequency. Usually we lived on a base and so went to school with other military kids... sometimes though we moved places where there was no base and "all" of the kids lived there their whole lives. These few occasions it was a lot harder forming a social group and truly being happy with things in general.


So... with the eyes of someone who has been there as a child, I'll offer that IF you are intending to only be here a short period of time, it is best to either live in / send your kids to school in a larger city (with the idea that a lot of city folk are more transitional) OR send your kids to school at one of the international schools where the kids are almost guaranteed to have experience with the trials and adaptations of relocation.

There is more to it than the relatively simple language differences.

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Our son goes to the local village school, I speak a little German, but my husband speaks none. Our son spoke no german before moving out here (we're from the UK, with English as mother tongue) and went straight into the first year at school here, thankfully having been at school for 2 years in the UK he had already learnt what the other children were learning, so only really had to concentrate on learning the language, and as others have said he had 4 hours of german lessons a week at school to help him out. Due to this he was pretty much fleunt within 6 months of moving out here, and also speaks swiss german. He now speaks better german than he does english (he's now in the 4th year) and dreams in german as well.

this happened to me as well after about a year, MrsP & I only speak German at home, quite scary at first ...

The only one in our family that has any French experience is my 11 year old daughter. I wanted to know if any parents with no French/German language background have sent their kids to local school and how the experience has been.
Both my husband and myself are originally from Pakistan, but have been raised in USA from a very young age. English is our parents second language. Our parents were not always able to help with school work, but at least they were able to communicate with our teachers. That will not be the case with my children, since both my husband and I do not speak any French.
I know kids are quick learners, but I feel so much more at ease when I hear from someone who has been through a similar experience as I will be going through shortly.

Based on my experience (5 teachers so far) and that of a couple of friends, I would say you'd have less than 1 in 10 chance that your kids' teachers would speak no English. And even the ones who 'speak' no English apparently understand a lot but are just uncomfortable using the language.

The teachers will almost certainly speak enough for communication about day to day issues, and for the more formal parent-teacher conferences they can almost always rustle up a colleague to translate. You'll also certainly find that some of the other parents are fluent English speakers, who are happy to practise/ demonstrate their brilliance, and help out with little ad hoc conversations.

The schools are very, very used to this, and non-French English speakers are in a much better situation than Japanese or Albanian speakers! And learning alongside your child's homework is remarkably effective.

kodokan

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