Questions and thoughts from a daycare teacher

[mica_]

So, I am a childcare teacher living in/from Australia. First off I want to say I think it’s awesome to be raising kids multilingual and honestly I sometimes wish either of my parents knew a second language to pass to me now that I have an interest in linguistics and languages as an adult.

At the centre I work at, we have many families who speak more than one language at home(English+something else). In the age group I work in(0-2) we’ve got two families who speak German at home, two speak Italian and one speaks Russian at home. I am currently actively learning German but I also try and throw in whatever words I know or are easy to learn in the other languages to try and support the bi/multilingual kids learning their home language(specifically saying the words to the kids in question) as well as playing songs in other languages to all the kids.

Is this a positive thing that I’m doing and are there other or better ways to reinforce these languages? Could using the wrong word or bad grammar be bad for their language learning? What would you think as a parent if a daycare teacher at a monolingual daycare was attempting to reinforce a second language?

 

[violetstarlight]

@mica_ Another Aussie multilingual parent chiming in: my eldest managed to maintain and develop her community language at daycare to an amazing level because … there was one other kid in the daycare who spoke it and became her best friend. So another massive thing you can do is to not discourage the two German and two Italian kids from playing amongst themselves, yes, sometimes seemingly excluding other English or other speaking kids… it somehow still works out

The third girl in their close friend circle had English/Mandarin, and it somehow worked for them to happily play together for years and get along… and also somehow got shared reciprocally, as - I kid you not - my daughter came home one day and just sang Twinkle Twinkle little star … in Mandarin, when she didn’t know it in English or her home language …

 

[mica_]

@violetstarlight That’s a cool story about coming home singing twinkle twinkle in Mandarin. The power of kid’s friendships, huh?

That would be really good with the two German and two Italian kids being friends and talking with each other, but the age group I work with is infants and young toddlers so at least at the moment they’re not often actively talking to each other even in English and wouldn’t recognise that their families speak the same language. Maybe we could suggest that the families meet for play dates where the adults could be speaking the same non-English language around the kids though.

 

[relle25]

@mica_ We're a trilingual family and all of my kids have attended monolingual daycares in the community language. My native language is English and all the teachers at all of our daycares know at least a few words in English at minimum (nearly no one knows anything in my husband's language, which is far less common) and occasionally they'd randomly say some English words to my kids. I never had any big problems with it but I wanted them to learn the community language and most of the teachers at all of the daycares didn't have great English, so I didn't really actively want them using it on a regular basis with the kids or anything.

It's totally fine to be saying a few words here and there and a sweet gesture, but overall I don't think you need to worry about reinforcing the kids' minority languages, especially since the childcare you're working at isn't meant to be bilingual. Teaching the kids there some songs in a variety of language is never a bad thing and the kids will enjoy that for sure!

 

[mica_]

@relle25 That makes sense about the language abilities of the teachers and wanting the kids to learn the community language.

To the last part, yeah. Kids will dance and bob to pretty much any music anyway(especially the age group I work with who are only just starting to understand language at all) so why not make it songs in multiple languages.

 

[relle25]

@mica_ For sure! I worked at a bilingual preschool for a few years and the kids always loved hearing songs from around the world Music is such a great way for kids to pick up language organically.

 

[jamesmason10]

@relle25 I think it's nice for children to see that their language exists and is used outside of the home, but the importance of that probably depends on the family.

 

[relle25]

@jamesmason10 Absolutely, and it's always lovely to acknowledge it! But I would be really surprised if parents sending their kids to a monolingual preschool would have any expectations for a minority language to be somehow reinforced there in any significant capacity- that would be a tall order to fill for a staff who likely doesn't have fluency in German, Italian and Russian.

 

[jamesmason10]

@relle25 No of course no expectations, but if you're the only person speaking your language it can be hard for toddlers to understand that a language is real sometimes. It doesn't do any harm to hear the odd word. Our "minority" language is English and it's definitely helped my daughter to have a teacher who's pretty good at it for once.

 

[mica_]

@jamesmason10 So it seems to pretty much just depend on the individual family/people and maybe the context of what the different languages are, the language abilities of the teacher, etc. Makes sense

 

[aldredian]

@mica_ I think it is awesome that you are doing this. I had to tour like about 25 daycares and weed out the ones that aren't supportive of people from CALD backgrounds (I'm also Aussie).

Talk to the parents maybe. They could potentially share you certain songs as well for you to play to the kids.

The one daycare my son went to that is bilingual ask parents to write out many key words in their home language e.g. potty, water, hug etc. And that way, educators who don't speak the language can use those key words with the kids.

What would you think as a parent if a daycare teacher at a monolingual daycare was attempting to reinforce a second language?

You would be higher on my shortlist.

Do be prepared that some parents may want you to ONLY speak English. Some parents just worry about their kids' English way too much.

 

[mica_]

@aldredian Holy crap, 25 daycares to weed out unsupportive ones? That’s a lot. It sucks you had to try so many.

That’s a good idea to ask the parents for songs and some basic words.

So far the parents have seemed fine with trying to reinforce other languages(if I’ve tried saying bye in the home language at pick up, have said something to the kid around them, if the parents explicitly know, etc) so no issues there yet.

 

[themasterkey]

@mica_ We use a bilingual daycare and there are certain teachers that speak one language to the kids and other teachers that speak the other. The teachers don’t mix languages even though most are conversational at least in both.

I would say it best for to stick to your native language. It’s great you’re learning and will probably help understand the kids better, but you’ll have a worse accent and incorrect grammar, which won’t really help.

 

[gellmannamnesia]

@mica_ I don’t know if you do some morning time together but if everyone says good morning in their languages and maybe you find a song like the little spider that exists in lots of languages to sing to

 

[avivah0717]

@mica_ We are doing three languages (community language, and each of our languages). I'd be thrilled about this. Not necessarily because I think I'd make a huge difference in supporting the other languages but because (1) it clearly shows you are supportive of multilingual upbringing, (2) it strengthens the multicultural upbringing for my kid.

 

[angelbo737]

@mica_ Hi I’m a parent of a 14 month old living in the US and speak only Spanish to my daughter. I think a big benefit will be reinforcing words they’re learning at home. My daughter can say más (more) and agua (water) but I don’t think the daycare workers realize that’s what she’s saying. She also understands her body parts in Spanish if I say them she points to or sticks out her head, feet, finger, mouth, tongue, and hand, but only in Spanish right now.

One nice thing about our daycare though is when they’re a little older they have their words of the week in English and Spanish so the vocabulary will be reinforced - for example if this week they’re learning snow and cold they also learn nieve and frío and read books and sing songs about it, and also read a book or sing a song in Spanish too that uses the vocabulary. This starts in the 1.5-2yr room so she’s not there yet but I’m excited for it.

 

[ativyl]

@mica_ I think it's great! My toddler is currently learning 3 languages (plus some Sign): one from me (English), one from dad, and one at school (the community language). One of his teachers does not speak English, but my knowledge of the community language is....ok. We're able to communicate things like "he didn't eat." Anyway, so the other day, she learned one word in my husband's language and started saying it to my kid. He thinks it's hilarious! I don't think she's taking any other steps to try to reinforce this language (not that we need her to....I mean, if she wants to, great, but I don't want to put that pressure on her!), but I still thought this was great.

 

[jprice63]

@mica_ I would be thrilled if our daycare teachers had the same attitude as you do about this. I think it's great when adults show kids they are attempting a language they are not proficient at as both a sign of respect and curiosity about the kids' culture and as a demonstration of a growth mindset: even adults can elect to try something new and something they are not expert at, and that's an amazing thing to model to the littles.

I agree with another commenter that allowing kids who speak the same minority language to speak that language to each other would likewise be great.

 

[harrison1993]

@mica_ We're a trilingual family (community language plus each of our own) and we were very happy when our eldest son's teacher spoke a few Dutch words to him and read some Dutch stories and songs. We couldn't be happier with her as a teacher. She really goes above and beyond and we are extremely grateful to her for that. For us it was more about just making him feel comfortable and not so different at school. It is a wonderful thing you're doing. Keep it up!

 

[devonte07]

@mica_ Funny story: my kid’s daycare sometimes starts circle time with a song that includes greetings in different languages. She had no idea hers (French) was in there. When I said “sure it does, it goes hello, bonjour, guten Tag…” she rolled her eyes and replied “it’s not bonjour, in the song you have to say banjou-ah”.

It’s fine by me if the monolingual care situation I picked does not reinforce our home languages. What’s more important to me is that they reinforce the environment language, soft correct grammatical mistakes and build in a wide vocabulary. We don’t speak the environment language at home at all, so daycare is our main support in getting the kids fluent enough by first grade and in a position to succeed in the monolingual school system.