A dual language program in elementary school is appealing for several reasons, but as with any big decision, there are tradeoffs to consider. If you’re going through the Kindergarten admissions process and wondering if your child would benefit from a dual language program, keep reading.
I also want to throw out that the international baccalaureate primary years program (IB PYP Program) requires exposure to a foreign language and is something to strongly consider.
Before I go through five key factors parents need to consider, a bit of background on me.
I’m trilingual (German, Mandarin, and English with working proficiency in French) and was raised in a trilingual household (Mandarin, Tagalog, and English). Born in the Philippines, I attended an international school in Manila and moved to California when I was seven. At 18, I won a scholarship to study in Germany despite not knowing a single word of the language and went on to become fluent to work for German companies.
The scholarship influenced a large part of my young adult life and I ended up shuttling back and forth between America and Germany for five years straight, working each summer of college in the country, spending my junior year abroad in Munich, and getting married there.
Bilingualism opened doors for me, but not in the way that popular culture and the business media portrays it. So yes, I am a fan of bilingual education but having lived the life and acquired a wholly new language as a young adult, I know there are factors parents need to consider before enrolling their child in a dual language program.
Fluency or Conversational Capability?
A dual language program in a country where the dominant language is English will not result in fluency unless:
- Parents speak the target language being taught in the dual language program
- Children have near daily opportunities to practice the language in real life with other target language speaking individuals
The NYC elementary school day is 6 hours and 20 minutes. In theory, 3 hours and 10 minutes of that time is spent in the target language, but this ratio is not consistent over time, and actually decreases by the time you arrive at middle school.
3 hours and 10 minutes (or some hours and some minutes) is better than nothing. But unless your child has a true reason to learn the target language, it is impossible to gain fluency, and fairly difficult to attain conversational capability outside of tourist dialogue.
A Cautionary Tale: Lessons from SLA
While touring schools for PreK programs last year, I heard from a few principals at schools with a French dual language program who had accepted students from the highly regarded but now defunct Science, Language, & Arts International School. These principals spoke of a number of students who as far along as third grade did not have the ability to read at grade level in English.
This really made me feel 🤯 !!!
Yes, the principals admit that they were near fluent in French. But not having learned the fundamentals of reading by age 8 or 9? This is the sort of outcome that gives me pause.
Can you support your child’s language acquisition?
Being monolingual isn’t a kiss of death. You and your child can learn the target language together.
BUT
You have to be realistic about whether you’re going to commit to this task. At some point, there will be more homework in the target language. Kindergarten and 1st grade, you’ll likely survive. It’s 3rd grade on where you have to be honest about whether you’re still going to be in the ring.
Another real life story: I took undergraduate econometrics in German, survived, and went on to write A rated undergraduate and graduate theses using OLS regression models.
This was a risky move for me as a political economy major, because if I had not been able to keep up with the econometrics course in German, I would not have been able to graduate (both programs required an econometrics based thesis).
Learning critical subject matter in a foreign language is something that needs to be considered in the context of your child’s temperament and grit factor. Especially with something fundamental like learning to read, you have to be ready and able to step in if things go wonky with a dual language program.
Long-term, there’s nothing wrong with exposure of course. But if your goal is fluency, a dual language program in a country where the majority language is English will not work.
What reasons will your child have to learn the target language?
Maybe you have grandparents in a country that speaks the target language? Maybe your child has a best friend who has moved to a country where the target language is spoken? Is there a show that can’t be found in English that your child loves watching?
These are all good reasons to try the dual language program.
The key is that your child has to really want to learn the language.
I learned survival German because I otherwise wouldn’t have had friends at the high school where I completed my gap year. But I REALLY learned German because I had a German boyfriend.
To DLP or not? That is the question
One more thought before I wrap it up: are you willing to take a slight academic hit for mediocre conversation abilities? This is really the risk you have to quantify and ask yourself.
It’s possible there is no academic hit and your child is just fine. But if your goal is a competitive middle school and high school were testing and grades will be required, see below.
Some kids will welcome the challenge of doing something different. Others have open minds and will stick with something if they find it interesting enough. Only you know your child best.
Of course I won’t leave you hanging. I’ll talk about learning resources we’ve used for foreign language exploration and best practices for raising bilingual children in future posts.
