“My husband is a native Spanish speaker. I’m a native English speaker. We both speak each other’s language, although I’m not totally fluent in Spanish. We live in California and I would like to send my girls to a Spanish immersion public school (k-8) so they learn academic Spanish and English. My husband disagrees; he believes they should go to a Chinese immersion school to learn Chinese and English. He says Chinese would be a great language to know in the future, and he says they can learn Spanish at home. I’m concerned that they won’t learn academic Spanish at home, mainly because I’m not a native speaker and we won’t have the time to teach them a high level of Spanish. We try to speak only spanish at home now, but my fear is that they will only learn “home” Spanish, and not develop academic ability in the language. I don’t want them to feel inferior to other Spanish people when they get older, or not be able to attend college in Spain someday if they want to. Would the time spent in Chinese immersion hinder academic Spanish. (Neither my husband or I speak Chinese). The girls are only 2 years old now, but we’re planning ahead.
Thank you for your advice.
Amelia”
Hi Amelia,
The options that you outline for your children’s education are both reasonable and have both pros and cons. On the one hand, you could introduce your children to a ‘much-valued’ third language – Chinese – and have them become proficient in it through schooling, opening up opportunities for their future that might not be offered by knowing Spanish. At the same time, you would continue to provide Spanish input in the home so that you children would keep growing in this language as well. I am assuming the school that offers Chinese immersion also teaches English, so that by 12th grade, your children would be literate in English and Chinese and, at least, they would be orally proficient in Spanish. So this option makes sense for those who highly value a third and lesser known language and for whom it does not matter the degree of proficiency and literacy achieved in the home (minority) language.
On the other hand, if you want your children to know Spanish WELL, if you want them to have grade-appropriate levels of literacy in it, and perhaps go to college in Spain as adults, then my advice is that you send them to Spanish immersion. As you say yourself, by just using Spanish at home, your children might become orally fluent in it but they will rarely reach the levels of literacy achieved by children who are schooled in that language for 8 or 12 years. Even if you provided many opportunities to develop Spanish literacy in the home, it would be very hard, if not impossible, to match the time spent in school learning in that language. So if your goal is full bilingualism and bi-literacy in the languages spoken by your family, I would say go for Spanish immersion. Of course you can always introduce a third language, but this could be done as a ‘subject’ that you take separately at school or after school.
I went myself for this latter option. My children were raised with three languages, Italian being spoken by me, English by dad, and Spanish by our nanny. When time came to send my daughters to school, I could have opted for the more ‘marketable’ Spanish immersion, but I went for instruction in the home (minority) language – Italian. For me, it makes more sense to have my children fully bilingual and bi-literate in the languages spoken at home than any other – no matter how marketable – language. The bottom line is, you have to look at what your goals are when deciding in which language(s) to educate your children as these choices will have life-long implications for them and for the entire family.
Simona Montanari, Ph.D.- – Assistant Professor of Child and Family Studies at California State University in Los Angeles. She is the department’s expert in early multilingual development and has a PhD in Linguistics from the University of Southern California. Simona is Italian and she’s also a mommy to trilingual daughters aged 3 and 4 1/2. In addition, she conducts a workshop titled: You, too, can have your question answered by one of the experts on our panel. Submit your question to Ask an Expert.
wow! Sounds like a win win situation to me!
It seems to me that if your child is fluent in Spanish (I imagine if she is orally fluent in Spanish and can write in English, she’ll be able to easily learn to write in Spanish), it would not be a problem to later study or work in that language. I grew up learning Spanish only in a public school curriculum and I managed to study at a Spanish university, work in Spanish and now, raise a child in Spanish. Whereas learning the Chinese with such fluency as is possible from a young age is not something that can be easily replaced later. I’d tend to agree with your husband that your daughters will emerge from high school with a greater skill base if they study three languages now. Also, the Chinese school might have opportunities to study a third language in the higher grades. Finally, I think the study of a language such as Chinese exercises the brain in different ways than the fairly similar English and Spanish. The ability to learn such a different structure will probably help should your daughters ever decide to study a non-romance language.
It is more difficult to be fully literate in Spanish, without having gone to school in it, but my company relies on my skills with reading and writing Spanish, and my in-laws (native Spanish speakers) ask my help with understanding legal documents written in Spanish. I would say a person does not have to be 100%, to be highly functional.
I admit it’s been easier for me to learn, just because I’m motivated. By schooling children in a language you get them to a high level of functioning, whether or not they take any particular interest in it. If you don’t have them immersed in the language at school, you have to find ways of getting or keeping them interested in it and motivated.
I agree that it depends what your goals are. In the United States there are many people with skills in Spanish, but to be trilingual with Chinese, English and Spanish would be a really big advantage in the work world. But perhaps, it could be more important that the child have easier, almost automatic, access to the full richness of literature, poetry and history in Spanish? I guess that’s the decision.
I absolutely love how you came to your decision about which language would be the 3rd language in your home Simona, and I feel you provided fantastic direction for Amelia’s family and many, many others. It’s NOT always about the marketable language, is it? So much has to do with heritage, community and personal situations! Thank you for your insight once again.
Hi There!
I take it that you want your children to learn Mandarin? I think whatever route you take will be beneificial to the children. Whether they are immersed in a particular language or are taught solely at home, they will already have benefits that other children might not have.
I learned Spanish first at home, then English. My mother was so concerned with my accent and the fact that I was mixing words by the time I was in second grade, that she would have me sit at home at my desk and write out words and definitions from the English dictionary and then read them to her (after school and on weekends).
Then I started learning French at age 10 at home (bc I fell in love with the language) and then in High School for three years (bc it was mandatory – yay for me – and yet without practice my level of French remains rudimentary after all these years).
Having only taken two years of Spanish in school, my writing in Spanish is not great, but the Firm I’m with relies on me to read legal documents in Spanish, speak to clients, and to write Legal documents in Spanish as well. So it IS possible to achieve a level that will be sufficient when it comes to school and career.
My partner is fluent in English and Spanish (oral & written), Proficient in Portugese (oral & written), and has a rudimentary understanding of / and ability in speaking Cantonese. He lived in Puerto Rico, Ecuador and in New York, and learned English and Spanish in school. His grandmother is half Chinese and half Ecuadorian. His nanny was from Brazil. So Cantonese and Portugese were spoken in the home. And with all of that he only has clients that speak Spanish or English. His children only speak English and Spanish.
Aside from my partners children, I have no children of my own. As a former teacher, all I can say is this – whatever road you choose to take will be beneficial. All you can present to your children is the opportunity. The rest will be up to them in the end.
Best of luck.
Li
@LaLicenciada
@HerDeepThoughts