Pre-School and Daycare
lilles
member
Anyone's LO in a language immersion preschool
lilles
member
If your LO is in a language immersion program for a language not spoken at home how long did it take her to understand/speak the language. My LO is bilingual (English/Spanish) and has the opportunity to attend an immersion preschool in a third language (German). There are no programs here in Spanish which would have been our first choice for an immersion program. Anyone in a similar situation? Any experiences with language immersion programs? TIA
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Re: Anyone's LO in a language immersion preschool
Mine have been in a French immersion program since August. I do not speak French, nor does my husband. They have not been exposed to any other languages.
Until yesterday, I just thought they knew some songs, some words (numbers, colors, animals, that kind of thing) but then when I went to pick them up, I heard them having a conversation with the teacher's aide. They were clearly understanding what she was saying to them, and they were saying more to her than just vocabulary words. I was kind of blown away. I'm sure they were just saying very basic things, but I was still shocked.
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My daughter is finishing her 2nd year in an immersion program where she's learning Spanish, French, & Chinese. My husband speaks French and he's always spoken it to her since birth. She's picking up the languages very well and very quickly. The expectation set by the school is that the majority of the students there will be fully fluent by 1st grade.
Our experience so far has been great! Our daughter is learning so much and she's happy. She's made friends and is comfortable there and academically, she's accomplishing much more than most children who attend only English-speaking preschools.
I'm not sure if this counts, but DD is bilingual Spanish/English and we just moved to France in January. She has been going to school 5 days/week in French since then and still isn't speaking much French. She understands a lot more now (she'll pick up on parts of conversations, for example, when I talk to her teachers at pick-up and drop-off) and knows some songs and certain words- farm animals, counting to 10, etc., but I think it might still take another few months before she feels confident and able to speak full sentences consistently.
Obviously, our circumstances are different, but I could have just enrolled her in an English-language school in France. It's important to me that she learn a third language and I don't think we'll regret the exposure to French even if she doesn't end up speaking it fluently before we move back home in a year.