I have an 18 month old son and recently we have had to change our childminder.We have just employed a foreign woman to mind our child for two days a week but she has poor English and
I am concerned that this may hinder his language development.
Any comments appreciated
Last edited by steveingalway; 02-19-2007 at 08:30 AM.
Hi Steve, take advantage of this and have her teach your child a second language! Children can learn two languages at the same time. I know many children who have done this.
I work in a preshcool with children aged from 2 - 5 year old, we have techers from other cultures who speck english but is not as clear, the kids are lucky, our chineese teacher can teach them some chineese and the children are exposed to enoughf in english that they understand her and speck correctly..
Your caregiver is only 2 days per week theorfore the majority of the time your child is around english, he will be fine and you could most definanatley use this to your advantage and have the caregiver teach some words from her culture!
studys show that it is easier for children to learn a langugage when they are older if they have been exposed to it at a younger age too!
maybe you could get the caregiver to teach you some words, that way you will no what your son says if he comes out with things!
heres something funny, well i thought it was funny, There was a little chineese girl and work, and i thought id would say hello to her in chineese, she is a little girl who had limited english and so didnt talk much.. well here i am saying what i thought was hello, and she is laugfing! i thought this is good! hehe until i realised she was laugfing at me becasue i was telling her "goodbye"!
i agree with everyone when i had to come to the decision of letting my mother in law teach my child spanish and my sister in law sign language . but my child is almost going on 3 years old and i say she is very smart. she is actually teaching me alot to so im getting something out of this also! even though we might thing its going to be hard on our children if you notice that its helping them and not confusing them let them learn it might be harder for them to learn it later on. at least i can say i have always wanted to learn spanish fluently but its very hard now that i can find enough time. our kids are at the time were they have plenty of time to learn and understand different languages lets let them learn we might one day get something great in return! lol
