Tell me about your language immersion experiences!

[blessedwithboys]

Ds2 is in 3rd grade and this is the first year his school has had a language immersion program. The principal told us last year that he would be traveling to a certain country to recruit native speakers. We ended up with a teacher who is from a land that speaks the language, but with it's own dialect. Also, her English grammer and spelling is slightly less than stellar.

I guess I'm not sure what I expected, but if you had asked me, I would have said that I expected a large percentage of the class to be taught in the new language and I also would have expected HW in the language as well. (As some of you may recall, I am No-HW-Mom, but in this case, I think it would be a good idea to have some extra practice.)

Well, what I've learned is that the class is getting almost no work in the new language. The plan is to increase it each year so that by HIGH SCHOOL he is fluent. That's 6-7 years away! I just skimmed through some other threads here about fluency being achieved in a fraction of that time.

Does this sound right to anyone? Is this how it's done? Tell me your BTDT.

[tatermom]

DS is in kindergarten but I've visited all the elementary level classrooms. At his school the kids are expected to be speaking only the target language in the classroom by the middle of 1st grade, so 1.5 years into the program. Until then, the teachers speak only in French and the kids are allowed to answer in English, though French is encouraged. DS's K teacher never speaks to him in English, not even on the first day of school. In December of 1st grade they have a big party to celebrate the transition to speaking only French. I visited a 1st grade classroom in February last year and was completely blown away by how fluent the kids were.

So, yes, I agree that fluency can be achieved much more quickly than what your school is suggesting.

Edited to add, perhaps your school has a "partial immersion" program?? I know that fluency takes longer in a partial setting than a "full" immersion.

[AndrewsMother]

50/50, 100, 90/10, 10/90....What is the level of immersion?

My son's French teachers do not have the best English Grammar, but they don't speak to my son in English, so to me it is not a problem. When they write notes to me, I understand what they are saying, but their sentence structure is not perfect, but they were found in France, in French speaking schools, I would not expect them to speak or write perfect English.

Now, I do expect an excellent command of the language from my son's English teachers, and I don't really care if the speak French well, or not at all.

At our school, after Kindergarten there is only full immersion for students in the French Section. Students in the International Section who study French or Spanish spend 6 hours a week in their chosen language. The children are able to read and understand the language after two years, but they are often not fluent until closer to middle school.

The children who are enrolled in the French Section take all of their classes in French except extracurricular classes and 6 hours a week of English language instruction. These children are bilingual within a year, at most two.

Teachers only teach the class of their native language, no teacher instructs the class in more than one language.

[velochic]

Sounds like it's 2-way immersion. I think they're probably doing it right. At 3rd grade, there's no way they could do 1-way immersion without the kids completely getting lost.

Dd is in 3rd grade and it's 1-way immersion that she started 6 years ago at the 3-yo preschool level. Kids in her class that started in 1st grade are still not fluent like she is. She is completely fluent, but when you think about it... it's been 6 years. She was really fluent a couple of years ago, but her language is becoming more diverse now (i.e. able to fluently talk about subjects that are not discussed at school). I think the being fluent in 6 years is about right starting so late... probably more, even, unless they pulled the kids out for a year of just language instruction only. This is what my dh did to learn English in his home country. He still doesn't speak English perfectly.

[whatsnextmom]

You have to take fluency claims with a grain of salt. Kids who start kindie even in full-time immersion are NOT considered fluent in a year. Sure, they sound amazing but they don't have the vocabulary for an adult conversation and wouldn't truely be considered fluent. My DS is in a full Spanish Immersion program and they don't consider their kids truely fluent until they finish 5th grade. At this point, they can actually read a Spanish newspaper and talk politics, science and world events with adults. That's a good 6 years with the vast majority of their instruction being in Spanish.

Now, DS also gets "Mandarin enrichment" several times a week starting in 3rd grade. They are learning in a more traditional way (not real immersion.) They don't expect fluency until after graduating high school (And that's IF they continue their studies all those years.) I suspect your child is getting more this... enrichment not immersion. It's still FANTASTIC, it's just not going to progress as quickly.

[whatsnextmom]

I think they're probably doing it right. At 3rd grade, there's no way they could do 1-way immersion without the kids completely getting lost.

I agree, it would be really difficult to start full immersion in 3rd grade when the reading and writing standards are so high. It's much easier to start full immersion in kindie when their vocabulary needs are so much lower and they can gain enough in the new language to accomplish the standards of that grade pretty quickly.

[velochic]

Originally Posted by whatsnextmom

You have to take fluency claims with a grain of salt. Kids who start kindie even in full-time immersion are NOT considered fluent in a year. Sure, they sound amazing but they don't have the vocabulary for an adult conversation and wouldn't truely be considered fluent.

I agree with the fact that fluency isn't reached in a year. However, even in L1 (the mother tongue) a child in kindie or 1st isn't going to be able to have an adult conversation. The point is that they are fluent *for age-appropriate development*. A 9 year old 4th grader is going to be speaking much more like and adult than a 5 year old kindie student. This is why I think it's so important to start early... they grow into the language as much as the absorb it. I ABSOLUTELY think that in Kindergarten, entering her 3rd year, dd was as fluent in her target language as any 5 year old child whose mother tongue was the same. Neither could carry on adult conversations.

[whatsnextmom]

The point is that they are fluent *for age-appropriate development*.

It's not that I disagree, I just feel that on boards such as these "fluent" is thrown around quite a bit with kids who are truely just starting their studies. A year or two in an immersion school does not make a fluent individual and immersion schools will be the first to state this. For a child to be a fluent adult, they have to either grow-up with that language or they have to continue their studies. You can't claim they are fluent at 7, let them stop their studies and expect that vocabulary will qualify them as fluent at 20.

My point is, fluency is a long process. If the OP is reading these boards and hearing parents say their 7-year-old is fluent after just 2 years in the program, well, it's misleading. Those 7-year-olds have strong conversational skills and that's great! They aren't fluent in the language.

[tatermom]

Originally Posted by whatsnextmom

It's not that I disagree, I just feel that on boards such as these "fluent" is thrown around quite a bit with kids who are truely just starting their studies. A year or two in an immersion school does not make a fluent individual and immersion schools will be the first to state this. For a child to be a fluent adult, they have to either grow-up with that language or they have to continue their studies. You can't claim they are fluent at 7, let them stop their studies and expect that vocabulary will qualify them as fluent at 20.

My point is, fluency is a long process. If the OP is reading these boards and hearing parents say their 7-year-old is fluent after just 2 years in the program, well, it's misleading. Those 7-year-olds have strong conversational skills and that's great! They aren't fluent in the language.

I don't want to start a debate here, but it sounds as if you are suggesting that a 5 year old is therefore not "fluent" in his native language because he does have adult-level conversational abilities?? Of course a younger child will not have the language capacity of an adult, but if said child (5-6 years old) is able to converse in the target language as well as he can in his native language, how can this not be considered fluent? Of course if he does not continue in the target language he will lose his fluency, but that can be true of the native language as well. My cousin was adopted from Vietnam as a 9 year old and lost nearly all of her native language as she grew up in the US. This does not mean, IMO, that she was not fluent in Vietnamese at age 9, even if she did not have adult-level abilities at that age.

OP, sorry if this takes the discussion off into a tangent too far, but I do think it is important to clarify what "fluent" really means. Do we mean "native-level" fluency, or do we mean the ability to read, write, and converse easily in the language?

[whatsnextmom]

OP, sorry if this takes the discussion off into a tangent too far, but I do think it is important to clarify what "fluent" really means. Do we mean "native-level" fluency, or do we mean the ability to read, write, and converse easily in the language?

In our immersion school "native fluency" is the goal. When these kids go to high school (if they continue their studies) they qualify for "Spanish for native speakers" courses. We were prepared upon enterance into the school that they wouldn't be considered fluent for many years. If you feel your child is fluent so be it. For the purposes of the OP, I want her to be aware that people have different standards on fluency and not to stress too much about 1 child being labeled fluent with 2 years education and another being considered fluent after 6 years.

[velochic]

Originally Posted by whatsnextmom

It's not that I disagree, I just feel that on boards such as these "fluent" is thrown around quite a bit with kids who are truely just starting their studies. A year or two in an immersion school does not make a fluent individual and immersion schools will be the first to state this. For a child to be a fluent adult, they have to either grow-up with that language or they have to continue their studies. You can't claim they are fluent at 7, let them stop their studies and expect that vocabulary will qualify them as fluent at 20.

My point is, fluency is a long process. If the OP is reading these boards and hearing parents say their 7-year-old is fluent after just 2 years in the program, well, it's misleading. Those 7-year-olds have strong conversational skills and that's great! They aren't fluent in the language.

And I disagree. I think that after 2 years in one-way immersion, a 7 yo can be native-fluent for their age. Of course they can't stop at that age and expect that to last a lifetime. It's no different for native speakers, however. They can't stop using their native language at 7 and expect to remember it at 20. But I certainly wouldn't say that after a few years in one-way immersion that a 7 yo is not fluent. A native speaker of the language, then is not fluent. (And I doubt anyone would claim that their English-speaking child in North America is NOT yet fluent in English. Of course they are... but their vocabulary, knowledge and life experiences are not going to allow them to carry on an adult conversation.) My undergrad degree is in linguistics, so I have studied 2nd language acquisition quite a bit. NO language is permanent. But age-appropriate fluency can and DOES occur in just a few years *at a very young age*... this is not so as they get older. No 7 year old can have an adult conversation... whether you're monolingual, bilingual, or multilingual.

ETA: My dh and his entire family was the product of immersion school, too. Not in the US, he's from the Middle East. We are not new to immersion, so also have a 40 year track record to look to.

ETA again: I should have just to tatermom, but didn't read her post first.

[blessedwithboys]

Thanks for all of the replies! I really appreciate hearing both sides of the "what constitutes fluency?" debate. I sort of understand it personally. I grew up in the US, so my L1 is English. My "L2" and "L3" were Haitian Creole and French. I was also exposed ot lots of Italian by the other side of the family. I put the quotes bc I didn't learn to speak these languages, or read them, but I was exposed to them regularly and could respond to simple commands and pepper my English with phrases here and there.

Then in HS I took 3 years of French and picked it right up. I could chat with the teacher (a native speaker) conversationally by the end of those years and won awards each year at a district-wide foreign language festival for my accent in poetry recitals. I even wrote a rap song in French for an assignment. lol

15+ years later, my accent is still pretty good although I can't just chit chat easily. I can, however, read almost anything in French bc I can take time to translate. I have never "thought" in French.

I want ds to go further than I did in his grasp of the language. School started in early August, and so far I haven't seen one single worksheet come home in the new language. No vocab words. All the spelling words are English.

At first, I thought the program had been grossly misrepresented to the parents, but today I learned some interesting things about the teacher's qualifications (I plan to start a new thread in a bit). For now, let me just say that she came from a land where both English and the new language are taught simultaneously in school, so she has no excuse.

Keep the BTDTs coming!

[velochic]

Originally Posted by blessedwithboys

I have never "thought" in French.

I think immersion is worth it and you should definitely ask some questions if you're feeling that they are not doing a good job. You still didn't mention if it's one-way or two-way (and is is public school or private?).

The reason I quoted the above is because when you attain fluency... real fluency... you DO think in the language. I used to dream in Russian all the time. In fact, when when I was living there, I rarely thought or dreamt in English. Russian is L2 for me, learned at university and then I moved to Moscow. When I got my security clearance, they gave me a 4- on the government fluency scale. 5 is native fluency.

Dd is in her 6th year of immersion (started at 3yo program) and I know she dreams in Spanish because she talks in her sleep in Spanish. She still co-sleeps, but she has always been a sleep talker and she started this after just a couple of years. I absolutely believe that fluency is achieved at the point when you are dreaming in the language.

Good luck with the journey! It's well worth it.

[blessedwithboys]

Originally Posted by velochic

I think immersion is worth it and you should definitely ask some questions if you're feeling that they are not doing a good job. You still didn't mention if it's one-way or two-way (and is is public school or private?).

I don't know what one-way/two-way means, so I'm going to go look that up. lol

Even if our program is slower than other programs, I want to keep him in it bc I agree that it's a great experience either way.

I wonder if it's just our teacher who is the problem. I didn't want to give too many details in cyber space, but the new language is Spanish. The principal (a Cuban-American) told us he was going to Madrid to recruit teachers, and so he did, but we ended up getting a non-Spaniard teacher. Ds's teacher is last year's drama teacher who was recycled to take a 3rd grade class last minute when one teacher didn't come. She is originally from Puerto Rico.

I just found out her written communication and test grading ability is poor due to dyslexia. I think her Spanish is poor because she moved here and began speaking Spanglish at a young age.

Either way, we'll stick it out to see if next year brings a better teacher.

[blessedwithboys]

According to this page, it is a one-way program. It's a public charter school.

[flightgoddess]

Also keep in mind, it is a new program, there will be lots of kinks to work out, and being in 3rd grade, it is hard to get the balace of how much in 1 language or the other because there are standardized tests to worry about too, and how to get any of the standards mandated by the state, etc. The best way to get more of what you want is to get as involved as you can, and advocate as much as you can.

And maybe thy don't send homework in the second language home because they think parents can't handle it?