English Elementary Schools in Espoo

[californiagirl]

I am hoping for any experiences and opinions people might have on Komeetta and Postipuu elementary schools in Espoo? We are looking to move to Finland this summer from US. My older daughter is 7 (in 2nd grade right now), and would probably have to redo 2nd grade in Finland. But I am thinking Komeetta and Postipuu are probably the only feasible choices since her Finnish is very minimal right now.

Would appreciate any thoughts. Thank you!

[Rosamunda]

I have written tons on this in previous posts so if you search "Komeetta" "Postipuu" then you should find them. My children have now left those schools so I prefer not to comment any more since things might have changed in the last 1-2 years since my youngest "graduated".

My only piece of advice is to REALLY think hard about your long-term intentions. Are you planning to stay permanently in Finland or only temporarily and then move back to the US?

If you are planning to settle in Finland, I STRONGLY recommend you put your child(ren) into a FINNISH speaking school. If your daughter is learning all her subjects in English (eg at Komeetta) with only 4h compulsory Finnish Foreign Language per week (and little or no Finnish at home), she will probably NOT become a fluent Finnish speaker by the time she leaves primary school which will seriously limit her options in secondary school and possibly even exclude her from lukio.

And, maintaining their English skills will definitely not be a problem in a Finnish school. At least not in Espoo where English is fast becoming the lingua franca amongst school kids!

The other option is an immigrant integration programme with intensive Finnish. Your daughter could get on to one of those gradually moving into mainstream Finnish elementary and THEN later on, transfer into an English secondary school if she/you so wish. I so wish we had done that with our boys

[californiagirl]

Penelope,

Thanks for the response. That actually helps a lot!

[biscayne]

Oh, I SO agree with Penelope. If your plan is to stay in Finland long term, then a normal Finnish school is the absolute best choice. The reality is that if they are not exposed to Finnish properly, they just won't learn it properly. She is so right.

[LottaP]

How about bi-lingual schools? Right now we're planning to enroll our bi-lingual kids to one of them when they're old enough; Most of the tuition is in English to begin with, but by 5th grade it should be 50-50.

[diablogun]

How about bi-lingual schools? Right now we're planning to enroll our bi-lingual kids to one of them when they're old enough; Most of the tuition is in English to begin with, but by 5th grade it should be 50-50.

You're Finnish, right? and you are the Finnish speaker? (I'm guessing because of the incorrect use of the preposition "to" with enroll..)

There's a reason why it's called äidinkieli. In the bulk of the research into bilingual children, it appears that the strength of one language over the other points toward the Mother's influence and her consistency in speaking her mother tongue with the children. A whole bunch of variables are thrown in to each and every family but the general consensus is that if the Mom is the ml language speaker, and uses the ml language consistently and routinely, the kids, no matter how much influence they have to the ML, will grow with a certain ability to communicate in the ml. Research points at the children, in bilingual families whose Dad is the ml speaker, having a slightly less than fluent ability in the ml. Again, tons of variables here, too, like Dad being the stay-at-home parent.

"Success" in these so-called bilingual schools will depend on the children. I've chosen for my functionally bilingual kid to remain in a Finnish school. I'm the Mom and I'm the ml English speaker and his ml English skills have remained strong and consistent. Yeah, he lacks some vocabulary ie..words that he picks up from his friends.. that I don't ever use with him in our day to day life but, just like I continue to do, he picks up new words and remembers them from then on. In fact, now that he's been in the normal English class, with all his monolingual mates for the past 3 years, he's picked up a lovely Irish slant on words that his English teacher has introduced to him first.

I could have chosen the Normaalikoulu here in Turku from 2nd class...they also offer the IB from Lukio. My reason for enrolling him in the neighourhood school was because I wanted him to have complete command with his Finnish skills and understanding of "finnishness". His home is a mix of Canadian and Finnish and he gets enough English here with me and his Can relatives. I felt, after I'd interviewed the head-master of the Normallikoulu, that he'd not learn enough Finnish or much about Finnish history, geography, etc. because they cater to the non-Finnish children. This is this school and I'm sure each "bilingual" (I would call them immersion) school offers something different.

Check around with the different schools and do speak to other parents about their thoughts and feelings about the schools you're considering.

btw..ml = minority language and ML = majority language (the language spoken by the majority of the population in the community)

I don't mean to veer from the subject, but as you seem to be knowledgable about the subject, I would like your opinion. My son is being raised bilingually at home with Russian and English, my wife being the Russian speaker. If we move to Turku, is it a plausible idea to put him in a Swedish school (he is only 1 year now, but will be 3 when we move), and then have him learn Finnish from both instruction in the other national language, as well as the obvious exposure he would get from being around the language, as he gets older? I want him to have a native level in all four languages, but wonder if it will disadvantage his learning process in any way. Thanks for any advice you may have in advance.

Also, what do you think of the schools in Turku?

[Rosamunda]

....let the school and the big world outside of your home take care of raising him with a 3rd language. He'll let you know soon enough whether it's an issue or not. When kids need to communicate with other children, they learn very quickly!

I think I agree with most of what Cory says and certainly with the point that EVERY family has UNIQUE circumstances so there is no one way (like OPOL - one parent one language which a lot of the books recommend) and only you can decide what's the best for you. I also agree that it's a good idea to read about other families experiences (it's also reassuring to do so).

But... two small points re the above:

- we "let the school" take care of teaching our children Finnish and it failed. OK so our boys were 5,7,9 when we arrived here (which no doubt makes it harder) but now they are 14,16 and 18 and they are still far from fluent - at least not fluent enough to stand a chance of doing well in the Finnish high school matriculation exams.

- when kids of many nationalities mix together they are just as capable of using a vehicular language like English as adults are. And we have found (in Helsinki, Espoo) that most kids (especially teenagers) are more than happy to speak English. We have asked our eldest son's friends to speak to him in Finnish but somehow they all think it's much more cool to speak English.

[diablogun]

I don't mean to veer from the subject, but as you seem to be knowledgable about the subject, I would like your opinion. My son is being raised bilingually at home with Russian and English, my wife being the Russian speaker. If we move to Turku, is it a plausible idea to put him in a Swedish school (he is only 1 year now, but will be 3 when we move), and then have him learn Finnish from both instruction in the other national language, as well as the obvious exposure he would get from being around the language, as he gets older? I want him to have a native level in all four languages, but wonder if it will disadvantage his learning process in any way. Thanks for any advice you may have in advance.

Also, what do you think of the schools in Turku?

I am not a professional, simply a parent, but can say that the topic of "raising bi/multi-lingual kids" has been a "hobby" as well as a life's challenge for the past 16 years.
There is alot of research available online about parenting a multi-lingual child. It is really worth your while to do some searching.

When it comes to parenting, each family is unique just as each parent and each child are. There is no right or wrong way to raise our kids and one unique part of our parenting is that we have more than 1 language in the family. What one bi/multi-lingual family will advise you on will most likely differ from the advice offered by another bi/multi-lingual family.

I know many bi/multilingual families and each family has its own story about how their children have dealt with language acquisition.

Reading your post, I thought about friends who live in central Finland. Neither parent is Finnish and each parent has a different mother-tongue. The 2 children were adopted from abroad as "older children". Their story is that Mom speaks her language to the children, Dad speaks his language to the children, they live in Finland and go to a Finnish neighourhood school and the children have had a tutor to help them keep up their birth language. The result is that both of these children, now 13 and 10, speak 4 languages. Mom's ml is strong as is their Finnish (even though Finnish is not spoken at home). Dad's language gets stronger as the children now have frequest visits from relatives and they are lucky to live close enough to their Dad's birth culture to be able to visit a few times a year. Their birth culture's language is the weakest, because it's a little used language in Finland and neither Mom or Dad speak the language but they (especially the oldest) are starting to explore their identities as adopted children.

I have always thought that the most "successful" multi/bi-lingual families are the ones which don't think too much about what they're doing with regards to language as long as they keep up a consistent pattern of language use with the children. People who don't understand how children actually acquire language get confused about a child can grow up speaking more than one language. Children just "get it" when Mom speaks language X with them consistently and Dad speaks language Y with them consistently. They grow up understanding that the speak X with Mom and Y with Dad. When the children are exposed to language Z with someone else consistently, they learn that they speak language Z with them.

Trust your instincts. If you know that your son is developing typically and he's starting to respond to both your wife and to you in your respective language then introduce a 3rd language in a school. Don't change your language pattern at home and let the school and the big world outside of your home take care of raising him with a 3rd language. He'll let you know soon enough whether it's an issue or not. When kids need to communicate with other children, they learn very quickly! There's absolutely no research which supports the myth that hearing two or more languages in childhood is the cause of language disorder or language delay.

Turku schools? There are many! Any particular area in mind? If you're interested in the Swedish school you're probably thinking about Kupittaa? We live in Moisio and I am very happy with the support and professionalism of all the teachers and the head-master. I'm just now doing some research about middle schools because we'll have to make a choice in the next couple of months as to which middle school my son will attend the year after next. I again had thoughts about the middle school which offers some tuition of science and maths in English, our ml, but I'm not certain my son needs that focus. I have a feeling that we'll make the choice beween either the school with a strong music program or the school with a focus on sport. At this point, I'm satisfied with his lingual skills and he doesn't understand why he'd go to a school just because they speak more English there. Point taken!

I have heard rumours about the elementary and middle schools in Ilpoinen and Varissuo...some child "gangs" and drugs... but they are rumours and since I have no first hand experience, can't confirm them.

That is very nice of you to share your insights, I truly appreciate it

I had indeed read through cursory research that each parent should speak their language to the child, so we are doing that. I am very confident he will do well in our languages. I want him to learn Swedish as well because I speak it (not natively) and it will of course not hurt him to know it. I know that the process that I went through to learn a foreign tongue was tedious and required a great deal of effort, so if I can instead get him to acquire these languages (and without an accent) as he grows up, then it should help him.

I have found the Swedish school via the internet at the upper secondary level in Turku, and it has about 250 students and seems to be good. The younger age schools I know nothing about, so any observations you may have about them (Swedish) are much appreciated. Like you mentioned as it pertains to your childs progression, I see no need to put him in and English school, because we will be there for many years, and I don't want him falling back on languages that would alienate him from Finnish society.

I will follow anything you have to say about Turku with great interest, because that may very well be where I end up in the long run. Thank you so much for your input.

[diablogun]

....let the school and the big world outside of your home take care of raising him with a 3rd language. He'll let you know soon enough whether it's an issue or not. When kids need to communicate with other children, they learn very quickly!

I think I agree with most of what Cory says and certainly with the point that EVERY family has UNIQUE circumstances so there is no one way (like OPOL - one parent one language which a lot of the books recommend) and only you can decide what's the best for you. I also agree that it's a good idea to read about other families experiences (it's also reassuring to do so).

But... two small points re the above:

- we "let the school" take care of teaching our children Finnish and it failed. OK so our boys were 5,7,9 when we arrived here (which no doubt makes it harder) but now they are 14,16 and 18 and they are still far from fluent - at least not fluent enough to stand a chance of doing well in the Finnish high school matriculation exams.

- when kids of many nationalities mix together they are just as capable of using a vehicular language like English as adults are. And we have found (in Helsinki, Espoo) that most kids (especially teenagers) are more than happy to speak English. We have asked our eldest son's friends to speak to him in Finnish but somehow they all think it's much more cool to speak English.

Penelope,

I am sorry to hear about the language issue you are having with your kids. I can see why that could happen, because I remember when I was 18 as an exchange student in Sweden there was a group of us studying there, but only two of us picked up much of the language. It was very easy to simply chat in English all day. If I have to, I will be a bit of a strict parent to ensure that does not happen, though one can never be absolutely certain. Have you tried to get them into an immersion program? I have read that some schools have them there. Are your kids rebellious about learning Finnish, or do they not see a need for it?

[Rosamunda]

Penelope,

I am sorry to hear about the language issue you are having with your kids. I can see why that could happen, because I remember when I was 18 as an exchange student in Sweden there was a group of us studying there, but only two of us picked up much of the language. It was very easy to simply chat in English all day. If I have to, I will be a bit of a strict parent to ensure that does not happen, though one can never be absolutely certain. Have you tried to get them into an immersion program? I have read that some schools have them there. Are your kids rebellious about learning Finnish, or do they not see a need for it?

My children do speak Finnish quite well, they are certainly not rebellious about it (they have even agreed to go on kesä lukio courses during the summer vacations and they have all had after-school activities in Finnish like music lessons, football and ice hockey etc). But my point is that they do not speak it fluently at a level which would enable them to get good scores in the Finnish matriculation exam (which is the ultimate aim, or at least, one of them). It's not enough to be able to chat to friends in street Finnish. There is a huge difference between the spoken language and "correct" written Finnish. In this respect I think their school has failed them, but it's a long story and I have written a lot about it on here already.

[LottaP]

Thanks Cory for your lengthy reply, I appreciate you taking the time to give me advice. You're right, I'm the ML speaker (i.e. Finnish) and my husband speaks English.

The reason we would prefer a bi-lingual school (I say 'prefer' because of course when it's time to start selecting schools we'll have to look at each individual school more closely so you never know how they'll turn out to be) because I believe there is a certain aspect to the language than children cannot learn at home. The style of language and also the vocabulary (depending on the subject) used in text books and in classes at school is not what you would typically be exposed to at home. Sure, you can read the same text books at home if you want to but not many kids would choose to do so in their free time, and certainly they wouldn't be writing essays etc at home, where they would be required/expected to use a more formal type of language.

This is really the main reason why a bi-lingual school appeals to us. I don't really have any concerns about our kids picking up both languages to a near-native level otherwise because I feel they are (right now anyhow) as balanced as they can be in this situation: obviously the environment and my side of the family speak Finnish and they mostly hear Finnish during the day when they're at home with me, but then again their Dad speaks English with them, they hear a lot of English as it's the language my husband and I use to communicate in and they get to spend time with my husband's family every couple of months (either here or in the UK). They also get read to in English a lot and frequently watch English DVDs. We use a strict OPOL method, and my husband is a very hands-on Dad meaning they do get to hear a lot of English. Next autumn our oldest (who will be 3 at the time) will be starting in English daycare, although as I've discovered the vast majority of the kids in English daycare centres are actually fully Finnish, so I realise it will not be a 100% English environment like I had hoped it would be.

[Tiwaz]

For clarification of my statement re: letting the community take care of the Finnish. The OP's child is small. Small children are not yet put into the school. By the time the 3 year old gets to school, he'll have had 3-4 years of "the big world" ie..sandbox play, daycare workers, etc. This is totally sufficient enough to develop his Finnish skills (given a typical cognitive/lingual developmental pattern) if the child is given every opportunity to interact in Finnish with the big world. Penelope, your children were older and out of the "play" stage. That would make a big difference. They also had each other to play with and I assume the language used amongst your boys is not Finnish or at least wasn't at that point.

Given that the OP's child is so young, he will absorb Finnish from all the interaction with other little children and the Finnish speaking adults that are still, at this point in this life, role models.

That assumes that OP puts forth the effort to "push" their children to Finnish circles. Mommy/Daddy might find it more comfortable for themselves to interact with other migrant parents.

Daycare could fix this issue, but overall OP has to pay attention to environment of his kids if he plans them to have sufficient Finnish skills to manage in Finland.

[AldenG]

Does there seem to be, in the research or in personal experience, a point at which "multi-" becomes "too many?"

I ask because some kids I've known from childhood into adulthood over the years, who grew up tri-lingual, did indeed seem fluent in the sense of flowing, comfortable, in the two languages I could assess. But I wouldn't call them exactly "native level" in either of those languages and I'm guessing probably not in the third one, either. Well, there are different levels of native, I suppose. Many people who grow up with only one language probably don't use it well enough to be in the top 25% on a matriculation exam (at least 75% don't), much less to write unsupervised for publication. It's not that I mind people using the "wrong" prepositions and such; I simply notice it and wonder how much it has to do with not having one "anchor" language. (I don't even particularly mind the handful of inferior choices I myself inevitably make in most any Finnish or Swedish email or letter I write, as long as it reaches a reasonably high level of clarity, intelligence, and correctness. I learn but certainly don't cringe when later reviewing some of them with the family Finn.) The benefits of growing up spontaneous and quite good in three languages might outweigh the advantages of not having a true and certain ear in any of them. (What do others think about this notion?) However, it could cause problems in some contexts such as trying to earn teacher certification.

[Rosamunda]

I don't think there is a hard and fast rule on that. Most of the papers that I have read concur that a bilingual upbringing/education produces better literacy overall (there was a study done in Wales where Welsh-speaking children scored higher grades for English than monolingual English speakers and I'm pretty sure those results have been reported in other bilingual countries. Beyond bilingualism though, I am sceptical as to how proficient a comprehensive school student (grades 1-9) can become. After all, there are many other subjects to deal with: maths, science, music, history, geography, ethics etc and only 24h in a day! But I see no reason why high school students who have opted out of some subjects can't find time to improve their fluency in 3-4 languages, and complement this with study trips abroad (which is what a lot of Finnish students do).

I know many children who speak 3-4 languages (Finnish, Swedish, English, French for example) but they never equal levels of fluency and accuracy in all the languages and in all 4 skills (reading, listening, speaking and writing).

[Tiwaz]

Interesting, too, is what we now (or used to) call "native". With so much of the world so mobile..moving from birth culture to language culture 2 and then language culture 3 and then language culture 4, etc.. having lived in a language cultures other than one's birth culture for more years, can they say that they still have a "native language" if their "native language" has been so greatly affected by being outside of one's "native" language culture for so long?

But what that means to identity of the person? Not having roots anywhere, no place to call your own. I would myself imagine that being far more detrimental to child in long term than benefits from multiple languages.

It is visible, in smaller scale, in many immigrant populations. Second generation is "lost". They no longer live in culture of their parents, but their parents brought up them to live in that culture. Result is group which is often easy prey for extremists as they are looking for solid, anchoring point for their life.

This is why I tend to cringe a bit inwards in some of these threads. Parents want what is best for their children, but do not always think through the all aspects of choices they make for them. Specially when we can't accurately even imagine the implications! I cannot truly imagine what it would be without the solid cultural identity I have. It is foundation of my identity. What if my actions would deny my child this foundation? Where it would lead them in their development?

Studies have pointed out also that for example multiple personalities are more common in bi-tri-lingual people. While still marginal, it points out to some disadvantages.

With so very many mobile people, "native" may not be relevant in a few decades.

Rather, it will in my guess become more important. You can swing one way only so long, and then comes the correcting move.

Large masses are getting steadily tired of multimultiness which invades every aspect of our lives these days.