As a practising mum, I'd like to say a few words about bilingual education for children. There is a lot of literature on this subject, which is obviously available on the internet, but I'd like to draw attention to a few technical terms. I use (Austrian) German alongside Hungarian on a daily basis, raising my children bilingually and introducing them English as lingua franca. 

  

1) Bilingual education in Vienna: There are currently 11 international schools in Vienna where German is  taught, so children learn German and English on different levels and to a different extent, both in vocabulary and grammar, as well as in active and passive vocabulary.

 

2.) Immersive learning is where all the teaching is in the target language. This is mostly the case when emigrating abroad and our child is plunged into a completely unfamiliar and therefore unpredictable environment, mostly without any preparation, which is not without stress. Our kids facing very demanding situations when all the activities are carried out under the guidance and with the participation of people unknown to them, in a language, environment and set of rules unknown to them, with very new cultural and social expectations, where kids have to work and to perform 6-8 hours a day without anything familiar to hold on. 

We should not underestimate this challange and if we have not prepared our child linguistically for this fundamental change, we should at least support, encourage and strengthen them in that massive adaptation and learning process, both emotinally and practically, because we threw them into this, our child had no choice. We need to listen to them and take seriously what they say, because this can easily discourage themfrom learning (of any kind) for life if they have the constant feel of failure, the psychological consequences of which I will not go into.  

 

3) Language of origin only at home: In this case, the family uses the parents' language only at home, while the new language is learned by the child during socialisation, mainly at school, kindergarden  and/or in other communities and among friends.

 

Advantages:

- It is well known that the sooner a child is exposed to a new language environment, the easier and faster it is for him/her to learn the new language, so it's worth starting kindergarten from the age of 3. This changes at around 8-10 years of age, when language becomes a tool for self-expression and thinking, when our thoughts are expressed more in language and not in pictures anymore. Let's not forget that a child who learns a foreign language at a near-native level by the age of 14 or so will not have a foreign accent in the new language. Unfortunately, by the onset of adolescence, physiological changes in the brain have already begun which makes it rather impossible to speak without an accent. 

 

- The parents' communication in their mother tongue provides an authentic model of correct language use, helping to preserve the cultural traditions, values and social norms of the country of origin in the  new environment. Try to bring your children together with as many reference speakers as possible in order to develop vocabulary, refine listening skills and thus improve pronunciation.

 

Disadvantages:

- Kitchen language at home: Since children hear the language only from their parents, they learn only the parents' active vocabulary, only the parents' individual language use, so often children learn only the so-called kitchen language. In this case, communication situations at home are often very limited to everyday question-and-answer sequences, whereby speech situations are restricted, vocabulary is limited, and there is little room for development.

 

- The language of origin is deteriorating: Many children choose the coping strategy of learning important vocabulary only in the new language, like words of play and learning for their everyday life in kindergarten and school, because there is no one to learn these from in their actual mother tongue, so the language of origin may slowly eroding.

 

- Mixing languages: It also happens that bilingual children mix their languages, e.g. they add German  conjugation endings to English words, which often is fun, but does not help them to stick to the given language. In such cases, it is important to remind our children to use only one language in a sentence, but not to correct them. What actually helps is if we to give them the necessary tool and name the missing word in German thereby enhancing their active vocabulary and repeat the sentence correctly, or ask them again with the correct word or expression.

 

- Furthermore is the problem, that we also get more and more used to mixed language structures, because mixing German and English is easy and convenient, it happens quickly. Mixing languages do not require attention and mental work, so we get more and more used to incorrect, sloppy word and sentence constructions, which, if our children hear those from us (too), it will be very difficult for us to demand correct language use from them.

 

4) The best known method is OPOL (one person, one language), where both parents use only their mother tongue when communicating with their children. As in the other two bilingual parenting methods, linguistic consistency is necessary, so kids can more easily distinguish and acquire both languages.

 

Advantages:

- Natural environment and cultural embeddedness: Children learn both languages naturally through everyday communication, in family conversations, as exposure to the cultural elements associated with the language is essential for the development of linguistic competences.

 

Disadvantages:

- Difficulty in maintaining consistency: Parents have to maintain a daily language division, which is particularly difficult in social situations where others do not understand the family language, so all of the speakers use a 'lingua franca', which is not necessarily the language of the parents, the family or the host country, for example English as lingua franca.

 

- Language imbalance: One language may become more dominant, especially if one parent spends more time talking to the kids. In mixed marriages, this can shift towards the mother tongue of one parent, especially if he/she is the only reference person in the child's life who provides not only his/her language but also the culture of his/her country of origin.

 

- Cultural isolation: The OPOL method can also lead to linguistic isolation if parents have little or no understanding of the language and culture of the host country and are therefore unable to help their children to meet school expectations and master everyday situations. 

 

- Lopsided vocabulary: The biggest drawback of the OPOL method is probably the limited vocabulary, as the child is only exposed to the language through one or two native speaker/s at home, only hearing the active vocabulary of that one person, with all its errors and omissions, and thus only learning the individual vocabulary, grammatical structure and pronunciation (=idiolect) of that one parent.

 

Bilingual education has many advantages, some of which can be illustrated with concrete examples. Bilingual children grow up in a richer linguistic environment, which promotes cognitive development and cultural awareness.

 

- Cognitive benefits: Bilingual kids have better problem-solving and multitasking skills, as their brains constantly switch between their two languages. For example, when faced with a mathematical problem, they find easier alternative ways of solving it, as they're used to comparing and analysing two different language systems, constantly considering different solutions.

 

- Superior language skills: Bilingual children learn other languages more easily, as they learn early on how to deal with language differences and subtleties. A bilingual child who speaks English at home and German at school or kindergarden will find it easier to learn a third language.

 

- Cultural awareness: Bilingual education helps children to understand and appreciate different cultures, which increases empathy and tolerance, and thus helps them to integrate into any new environment. This improves their ability to recognise and compare, to learn and understand ad different customs, cultural norms and social expectations (culture code), and to master various challanging situations.

 

- Social sensitivity and relationship-building skills: Bilingual and biliterate children develop better relationships with people from different linguistic and cultural backgrounds, which enrich their social networks and help them to thrive in a global world.

A multilingual environment fosters the skills needed for interpersonal communication, even if you do not actively speak the language of the host country. Bilingual children have a more refined empathy and therefore more developed social skills, so they can put themselves in the other person's perspective.

This is the basis for better observing their closest environment, as bilingual children constantly assess what language they're using and therefore constantly monitor potential changes in the environment around them. This constant vigilance requires them to be able to see situations from others' perspective. Bilingual children are therefore constantly forced to carefully observe communicative and meta-communicative contexts to be able to judge which language is appropriate in a given situation.

 

- Academic benefits: Bilingual children often do better at school, especially in language learning, reading and listening comprehension, music and maths. 

 

Cultural awareness plays a crucial role in the education of bilingual children, because language is not just a set of words and grammatical rules, but is closely linked to a particular culture and it's social norms. Here are some of the reasons why it is particularly important to be aware of the cultural elements associated with a language. religion or a country:

 

- In-depth understanding: Learning about cultural elements, social norms and traditions associated with a given language will help you to understand it at a deeper level and to use it more sophisticatedly, as will knowledge of the history and geography of the country, since language learning is not an isolated activity, it cannot be abstracted from the culture of its speakers. Also, incorporating cultural elements into language learning makes the learning process more interesting and enjoyable, which can help to sustain our motivation in later part of the language learning journey. In any case, cultural competence is also necessary to reach mother tongue level, since a language is not just a set of vocabulary and grammatical rules.

 

- Communication skills: Knowledge of the cultural context improves our ability to communicate, as we can more accurately interpret speech situations, customs, social expectations and norms. Responding to these expectations correctly also contributes to our linguistic confidence as we become more successful in increasingly complex interactions. Communicating with a person from a different cultural background is a challenge beyond linguistic compliance, as it also requires the constant decoding of metacommunicative elements such as body language, i.e. gesticulation and facial expressions, eye contact, personal space, etc.

 

- Identity-forming effect: The customs of other cultures help us to differentiate and thus strengthen our own identity, as we are constantly exposed to new information, different and often completely alien perspectives, which make us question and revise our own worldview, values and belief systems, and thus see them in a completely different light.

 

- Personal sensibilities: The development of cultural sensitivity to other people, customs, religions and cultures goes hand in hand with the development of empathy and tolerance, which is particularly important for thriving in today's global world. 

 

The norm we live by should not be underestimated, as children primarily adopt the attitudes and value systems of their parents. If kids see from their parents that they do not understand, speak or learn the language and culture of the host country (or worse, condemn it), they'll identify with it and parents will have a hard time to hold them accountable for learning the new language.

 

Parents need to support their children to develop linguistic thinking in both languages, as well as their active and passive vocabulary, and should also watch and ensure that the used grammatical structures are correct in both languages. They must also set a good example themselves, since children primarily internalise, copy and form opinions based on their parents' values and behaviour, regardless of the expectations and instructions they receive. Thus, a parent who expects his child to learn a new language and to become acquainted with a new culture in order to integrate more easily, but does nothing hisself , is losing credibility in the eyes of his child.

 

And a well-meaning warning based on 20 years of teaching experience: I caution every parent against comparing their children to other kids in any way. Just because Auntie Macy's sweetheart speaks German with über-perfect pronunciation and flawless grammar and an impeccable sentence structure after 1 month of Austrian school, without having been given any help, that does not mean that our kid will do the same. Each child learns and progresses at his or her own pace, according to his or her own abilities and current level of maturity, which can be steady or in waves, intermittent or an entirely zigzag path.

This is an unrealistic, wrong and unfair expectation from our children. It solves nothing, motivates noone and helps neither child nor parent. In the long term, it destroys our children's self-image, harms the parent-child relationship, damages the child's self-expression and language confidence, and adds only extra distress to the already existing pressure in school. 

 

Tearing, pulling and ripping grass will not make it grow faster or bigger.

Let's try to approach children's learning process like flower care: Orchids, cacti and sailflowers all require different light and watering, and have very different growth rhythms. 

Children with different learning types progress in different ways and paces, which actually can be tested from around the age of 14, by which time a learning routine has been established. Kids are mostly aware of their learning style and apply them preferably when learning on their own. We should rather listen to them carefully whether they're struggling with something, whatever that may be, and create an environment for them where they dare to vocalise their doubts, anxieties and perceived or real weaknesses.

 

The importance of learning together with your child 

Learning together with parents has many benefits for our children's overall development, their lifelong attitude to learning and their progress at school.  

Start preparing your child for life in Austria and introducing him/her to everyday (school) vocabulary in good time. It is a completely different starting point for a child who knows that at home mum/dad has already dealt with the challenge I'll face at school, has bought some books or a picture dictionary for and sat down with me to learn together the 10-20-100 words/phrases/expressions I'll need on a daily basis at school/daycare. 

This doesn't require a solid knowledge of German on the part of the parents, but rather a focus on coping together, letting our child know that it is important for us that he or she feels safe and that we support him or her in learning, fitting in and meeting school requirements.

 

- Emotional support: Active parental support strengthens a child's emotional security, which has a positive impact on his/her motivation to learn, personal engagement, and thus on his/her cognitive development and academic performance.

 

- Development of habits, learning patterns and self-discipline: Talk to your child about how you learned German, what was difficult for you, what was easy, tell them about your failures, mistakes, fears, share your tipps and tricks and ideas with them, and strengthens thereby your parent-child relationship.

The example of parents is a great help in developing effective learning habits and coping strategies. It is not enough to shout at a child: "Go to your room and learn!", if he or she is not taught at school how exactly to do that, and can't see its parents learning at home either. So there is a huge advantage for children whose parents actually sit down with them and talk about learning itself, about their own  experiences of (language) learning, essay writing and exam situations, about learning types, and how to organise contents and schedule study time at home. 

 

- Setting goals: Most children find it difficult to define their goals and strategies when learning. We have to explain them that the approach to learning is quite different when it comes to weekly revision and level maintenance (marathon), or when preparing for tests or entrance exams and needing to activate both grammar and vocabulary (sprint) in a short time. Make a plan with your child of what he/she can do alone on a daily and on a weekly basis, to improve language skills. Talk about the importance of repetition, make a study plan together before each class test so that he/she knows how to organise a certain amount of subject material. Offer help in the given subject so that your child can feel free to ask you questions or express doubts, and make a mock exam together before each test.

 

- Critical thinking, reasoning, problem-solving: As with all collaborative learning, co-learning with parents gives kids the opportunity to think critically, reason and hone our communication skills in a supportive home environment. Let your child explain rules to you, read to you out loud in German, translate and interpret for you, ask him/her for examples and exceptions, and about his/her everyday experiences with German. It's vital to acknowledge our children's practical competence and knowledge, not least in a relaxed and loving or even funny atmosphere. 

 

I am often approached by parents of very young children who ask me to prepare their 4-5-6 years old for school online, and I'd like to address the issue of e-learning for kids with a couple of neurolinguistic insights: 

 

- At the age of 4-5-6 years, children learn a foreign language primarily through communication and play (motor learning), so we can not really talk about organised, guided language teaching - even if many institutions and/or miracle methods claim to be so. 

 

- As cognitive abilities begin to develop and the function of language use changes around the age of 7-8, the situation changes. It is only at this age that language becomes a tool for thinking and expressing oneself; reaching school maturity, the focus is no longer on imitating adult speech with the purpose of  communicative interaction with the environment. It is then that thinking is increasingly done through words and phrases, school kids starts to think not any more in mental images, but gradually in sentences and expressions. 

 

- It becomes thus more important and useful to find a dear person or a welcoming community with whom and where a small child can develop emotional attachment. Regular language interaction with a beloved reference person - be it a kindergarten teacher, grandmother, best friend or a babysitter - is perfectly appropriate and enough for learning the basics of a foreign language in preschool.

- Organise therefore regular playdates, support your child building freindships, find and treasure a kind, caring babysitter who can bond with your child in German.  

 

I am strongly opposed to online classing under the age of 10, not only for the pedagogical/psychological reasons mentioned above, but also for biological/neurological reasons, namely:  

 

1) The attention span of a preschool child is 20 minutes max. Not to mention its need for movement and its ability to learn from human interaction and communication patterns. 

Therefore, it is pointless to keep a fidgety toddler statically glued to a screen for 60 minutes, where he is being lectured to by an unknown and thus unfathomable person, sentencing a small child to be merely an observer.  

To condemn a 4-5-6 year old to passively receive a mass of abstract information from an adult who is a complete stranger to him, through a virtual medium which is intangible to him, is simply absurd. Even an adult brain used to learning, like that of a university student, cannot absorb the information of a lecture online as fully as it can in a face-to-face classroom, let alone a kindergarden child who is  neurologically far from to take in, digest and proceed information via formal teaching.  

 

2) In online classes, interaction with young children is only marginally feasible, as the bitter experience of online teaching in the years of the pandemic has clearly showed, because emotion based, personal interactions are essential to secure children's attention.

The online environment can not substitute for traditional classroom interactions with plenty of hands-on learning, teamwork and peer learning, the social benefits and the simple joy to be part of a close-knit class community not to mention. 

 

3) There is so much going on on a screen to distract a young child from finding and focusing on the assigned task or the given explanation. A noisy blinking screen is a whirlwind of colorful stimuli that overloads the receptive faculties of a 4-5-6 year old child, saturating his nervous system with a mass of incoming information which he cannot filter or select the required information from.

There is no haptic connection to the incoming data, no personal connection to and no experience with  the teacher, no flood control to prevent overwhelming of the destination receiver, i.e. the processing capacity of a child's brain. 

A preschooler cannot process such a  flood of abstract information, he/she is only capable to passive and uncontrolled reception, not to learning as a conscious mental process of analyzing, comparing, comprehending and  utilizing. After reaching school maturity at around 6-7-8 years of age this slowly changes, but even then there is no point in online classes of more than 40 minutes. 

 

4) The physical presence of a teacher is essential for emotional connection at this age, otherwise attention and bonding to the teacher cannot develop. To build a trusting teacher-student relationship, a young child needs to actually experience the sight and sound of the teacher, to experience the teacher as a person.

 

5) This is very much like language "learning" through cartoons, where we put our toddlers in front of the tv in the vain hope that they'll absorb what they hear. They won't. They might remember a recurring word or two, since fairy tales have a closed vocabulary, but that is far from knowledge.

This kind of visual input only superficially "scrapes" the cerebral cortex, dazzling sounds and flashing images do not reach deeper layers, are not processed as short-term memory in the hippocampus, and certainly will not consolidate as long-term memory in the neocortex and stored as pieces of knowledge which can be recalled and actually worked with. 

 

For reliable language acqusition, repetition of new words/terms/linguistic structures is essential. Grammatical and sentence-building rules need to be solidified and integrated into everyday communication along with building up a soild vocabulary both in passive and active form. It is crucial to understand, internalise, utilize and then automate all of those at the same time co-ordinating and synchronizing very different skills.

In terms of language learning, cartoons can only help with listening comprehension, sensitizing our ears for the correct pronunciation by raising phonemic awareness to the sounds of a foreign language. But don't pressure and expect your 4-5-6 years old to learn German just because he has watched 5 episodes of Peppa pig in German. 

 

 

Learning styles and techniques coming soon... 

 

 

✍🏻 If you have any questions about bilingual education, learning types and the Austrian school system, or if you need support for your child in his/her studies, feel free to contact me, I can help you and/or your kids with individual counselling in one-to-one settings.  

 

🧠 I myself have studied several languages (Russian, English, Hebrew, German, Greek, Italian) in my life, so I know exactly what difficulties you have to overcome to get to the level you actually want to reach. 

As a university trained translator and interpreter I have a more thorough understanding of language systems and their interrelationships which I incorporate into my teaching method, thus extending and complementing the didactics of classical language teaching. 

 

👩🏻‍🎓 I support kids and teenagers in learning German for school, high school and university, preparing them for school tests (Schularbeit) and helping them with homework (Hausaufgabe), uni entrance exams, supplementary and language exams. 

Furthermore I specialize in teaching Austrian German (pronunciation, grammar, idioms, regional and cultural studies etc.) with a multitude of supplementary material. You can read more about me and my qualifications here.