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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]What I have heard, and what I observe with my kid and my kids' classmates at a dual language elementary, is that if you don't speak the target language at home, you have very little hope for long-term native fluency in the target language.  We have had Spanish-speaking nannies and au pairs and my kids speak passable Spanish and (having started at the school last year) are catching up to their grade level, but they are by no means fluent.  I lived in other and had fully bilingual friends with fully bilingual kids, and I'd hear their kids chattering back & forth in both English and the target language, shifting comfortably from one to another.  I NEVER hear this from the English-dominant kids at our elementary school.  The langua franca (sp?) on the playground is English, even amongst those who have been there since PS.

[b]Am I bothered by this?  Not really.  My kids are well above their grade levels in English and Math,[/b] and I think they will come out of the elementary school fairly fluent in Spanish.  The dual language program offers a good challenge that keeps their mind busy, and I don't see their other skills suffering.  Will they be fully bilingual?  I doubt it.  Will they survive in a Spanish only country and further develop their language skills?  Absolutely.

But, IMHO, true bilingualism (sp?) starts at home with immersion at home.  It is then reinforced in a school setting.  My friend's daughter is very verbally fluent in French, and they started at Stokes last year.  Since she was in an English-only school to start with, her French reading and writing are behind but she's catching up.  Both pieces of the puzzle need to be there, and it takes a lot of effort.  I honestly don't think it's possible to achieve full bilingualism unless someone in the household speaks it exclusively[/quote]

I agree that learning the target language at a young age is a bonus and I don't care if my kid is bilingual or even proficient by the time they finish elementary school since they can always catch up in the other language later.  My kid is above grade level in English and Math so I love  having another language to provide a challenge and having something that he has to "work on" at school.

My kid goes to Yu Ying and my kid's tones are "perfect".  It's incredibly difficult for adults to learn if ever so I'm happy that he has the opportunity to develop an "ear" at a young age.

English is my second language and I mastered it without my parents speaking it at home.  My kid's Chinese tutor speaks excellent English (good enough to get a Masters at Georgetown) without ever having parents speak English at home.  I don't think you need to have anyone in the home speak the target language to become bilingual.[/quote]

That's great to hear about your kid, very encouraging.

But your last paragraph, keep in mind that English is de facto the easiest language to learn, even if in theory it has difficult grammar and so on, [b]because it's spoken everywhere in the world, [/b]television, movies, business. Parents in every developing country want their kid to learn English, followed by other major languages. And it's very easy to learn English when living in the US. But this thread is about learning a language other than English while living in the US, which is completely different, and it really helps to have it at home. Though as your example indicates, it's possible without this.

[/quote]

LOL!  No, English is NOT spoken everywhere in the world...  don't know why Americans think this and expect everyone to know and speak English.

Our Chinese tutor came here when she was 22yrs old for her Masters.  She is completely bilingual without having parents who speak English and without the benefit of an immersion program with native speaker teachers or peers.

[b]My DH and I are both bilingual (different languages) without the benefit of our parents speaking the language and only living in the country where the second language is spoken in our twenties[/b].[/quote]

I'm still scratching my head over this whole "You have to have someone in the home speaking the second language from birth to ever become bilingual/fluent" conversation.  My life is full of friends and family who have acquired a 2nd language to the point of fluency and some who started with their 2nd language as adults.  Sure, native folks can usually tell it's not their first language (it's akin to speaking fluent English but having a southern vs. Canadian vs. New York City accents), but they are fully conversational and literate and can say or express or understand anything in that language.

It makes me wonder if those saying you have to have a family member speaking it from birth really haven't had the experience of knowing someone who is fluent but got there learning it later than birth and without a native speaking person in the household?  Or is there some other reason people are holding onto this "belief" that it's the only way to become bilingual?

And that's all talking about people who've become bilingual as adults.  It's even crazier to me to think that a child learning from 3 or 4 yrs old on, and sticking with it through school and into adulthood, would ever not become fluent or truly bilingual?  Yes, sticking with it is key, but no one in this conversation was speaking as if somehow these kids will be fluent by the end of Elementary school!  The whole reason schools like DCI and WIS have language offerings through middle and high school is to support students in gaining fluency.

At the end of all these posts, still no one has offered any evidence of why they think after all those years of study (for the students that stay in schools structured to support K-12 language study) and especially for those who continue in college, why wouldn't they be bilingual, now that we have a working definition of "bilingual" and "fluent".   Which says to me... it's a belief without support, because until you show me K-12 dual language schools in the US and their proficiency test results by 12th grade graduation show that none or few of the students are fluent, there is no evidence that fluency can't be achieved.  Even without a native speaking adult in the household speaking to the student from birth.[/quote]

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