Post by Leng on Nov 17, 2016 23:18:24 GMT 9
Hi!
My name is Leng, I am a Malaysian Chinese now living in the UK with my English husband and just turned 4 year old daughter, I have been teaching my daughter Mandarin. We adopted One Parent One Language strategy, and thanks to Adam, it worked in my family. However, I am starting to see greater challenges since she started school.
From recent school assessment, the report showed that she is weak in communication and speaking. I also observed that she is sometimes lack of confidence communicating English with her friends. I was wondering whether being bilingual slowed her down acquiring the confidence to speak in English. However, she speaks to my husband in English no problem.
After reading the assessment reports, I am very tempted to teach her phonics and Maths in English. We all want our children to do well in school. I spend a lot of time teaching her Chinese. She can read about 60 Chinese words and she is better in Chinese Maths than English Maths. I know if I spend the same amount of time in English, she would be excellent in English.
When I started to teach her Phonics and Maths in English, I can see that she was starting to use more English words in our conversation. I feel that I can’t win both ways. I have a feeling that because she spent equal amount of time in both languages, she would be just average instead of excellent in both languages?
The reason I have this concern is because I am from bilingual background, Chinese (Mandarin, Teochew, Hokkian), English and Malay. I am not excellent in any of these languages but average in all of them. As you can tell, my English is not great!
I have a Thai friend who adopted a different strategy. She concentrated on English when the children were young, she wanted her children to have high self-esteem and confidence in school. She worked on the minority language when they reached 5 years old. It seems to work for her. She observed some kids who were lack of confidence in school may not catch up with others when they grow older.
I am a confused mum. I hope Adam and other parents could help me with my dilemma.
Thank,
Leng