bilingual school En-Fi ?

Nagys · Post by **Nagys** » Thu Jun 16, 2011 10:38 am

Hi! I would like to get some advice regarding the bilingual education in Finland. I have a 4 years son who has been so far in a Finnish kindergarten since he was 1 year and 8 months. Our mother tongue is Romanian. The situation is that we are thinking to give our son to an English kindergarten (H&S International in Espoo) starting from August 2011. One of the reason for putting him in an English kindergarten would be that my husband doesn't speak at all Finnish and he would like as well to participate to our son's progress in school.The second reason is that there is a change that we move from Finland. We are aiming for our son to go to a bilingual school En-Fi when he turns 7 and thus to give him an opportunity to an international education abroad in the future. Now I am revealing my biggest worry: having to learn 3 languages at the same time, wouldn't be too much for him? Most of the children that attend a bilingual school are coming from a family that one parent at least speaks English or Finnish as a mother tongue. I have asked for advice to several kindergarten teachers and the Finnish teachers' opinion is that it would be too much stress for my son to deal with 3 languages. I mention that my son's mother tongue and Finnish are progressing very well. Did anyone has dealt with the same situation or have some advice for us? I am looking forward to getting any kind of opinion on this matter. Thank you!

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Nagys · Post by **Nagys** » Thu Jun 16, 2011 2:24 pm

Hi there! Has some any king of thoughts or opinion on my above message? It would be very useful to get any kind of suggestion.Thanks a lot!

Hämeen Hitain · Post by **Hämeen Hitain** » Thu Jun 16, 2011 5:53 pm

Some thoughts: I would not do it, as English is neither your home language nor local language in Finland. Three languages for so young child does not sound wise. Why can't the father begin to study Finnish? That would make more sense.

If you plan to move away from Finland, you should do it so early that the child has time to learn at least some of the local language before starting school.

oompah18 · Post by **oompah18** » Thu Jun 16, 2011 11:41 pm

I think it seems an excellent idea to give your little one an opportunity to learn another language. The younger the better, they pick it up so fast. I know quite a few foreigners here who have trilingual speaking kids. I used to work in a school in Switzerland where most of the 4 yr olds I had to teach (in French) were speaking german to one parent, Italian (for example) to another parent & French at school. Go for it! As long as you are consistent, ie you always talk the same language to him, don´t swap in between languages, he should pick it up.

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