# Portuguese School or British School?



## pinkbuddhagirl

Hello. I have two children, aged nearly 4 and 5.5years, been living in Portugal for a couple of years now. Their dad is portuguese, so there is no issue with language, they understand and speak portuguese, although probably not with as much vocab as a local portuguese child.

my problem is this: my kids are currently in a portuguese semi private school. its considered one of the best in Madeira. 

Problem is this, my 5.5 year old wants to read. She already knows all her letters and vowels, sounds etc. she is asking me to teach her. The portuguese system will not start teaching reading until around January 2014, a full year or more from now. I can leave her where she is, doing "play" all day, or i can move her to the British School, where she will start learning to read right away.

Cost is not really the issue, the difference in price between the 2 schools being minimal. 

For my son, he has another 2 years in the portuguese nursery before he joins cycle 1 in September 2014. They insist on putting him to sleep for 2 hours every day, which means he can't sleep at night, until sometimes midnight. there is no option to have him NOT sleep. 

If I move him to the british school, he will not be put to bed. His time could be beter used doing activity, sports or what ever.

Its a tough call, can anyone offer advice on my bi-lingual children? If youre in the same positon as me, did you delay their learning, even though they seem ready for more? Its a slow start in the portuguese system, and then, by the 3rd year,they up the momentum alot and the learning gets very intense.

Thanks for any advice.


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## siobhanwf

Hi there

I guess if it were me and I had a child who wanted to learn something I would not hold him/her back.

Reading should not be a chore for children it is something they will carry with them all their lives. Reading is a delight.

If you feel your children need the stimulation of another school and another way of looking at the world I personally would choose the British school.


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## jerryceltner

What about leaving them in the Portuguese system so they can learn their native tongue and give them private lessons from a qualified English teacher. They could both learn at the the same time and be streets ahead when they start to do English in the Portuguese school. This way they can have the best of both worlds.


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## xabiaxica

siobhanwf said:


> Hi there
> 
> I guess if it were me and I had a child who wanted to learn something I would not hold him/her back.
> 
> Reading should not be a chore for children it is something they will carry with them all their lives. Reading is a delight.
> 
> If you feel your children need the stimulation of another school and another way of looking at the world I personally would choose the British school.


agreed

I wouldn't necesarily move schools though - there's nothing to stop you reading with your child - you'll probably find that she will just start reading along with you anyway - it doesn't have to be anything formal - so the school shouldn't have issues with it - speaking as a teacher it can be a problem if a child has had 'formal' teaching in a different way to the 'school' way - but most children will just 'absorb' reading if they read along with mum or dad

I had a similar problem with my elder daughter - before we moved to Spain

she was reading before she started infants school & doing simple maths - I hadn't taught her to read - we just always had a book open when she was on my lap - & she almost taught herself to add & subtract too

she was bored - so I just had a word with the class teacher & she found something a bit more stimulating for her to do

when she was 7 we had a short time living in the US - they tested her reading age at 10! 

it has never caused problems at school - just read with your child - you'll both enjoy it! & I would probably in your shoes have books in both languages - again, nothing formal at her age

both my girls are now tri-lingual (we have a local language here as well as castellano) - we never had formal english lessons - but both have age-apropriate reading & writing ages in English - they have always read in all 3 languages since we moved here


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## pinkbuddhagirl

xabiachica said:


> agreed
> 
> I wouldn't necesarily move schools though - there's nothing to stop you reading with your child - you'll probably find that she will just start reading along with you anyway - it doesn't have to be anything formal - so the school shouldn't have issues with it - speaking as a teacher it can be a problem if a child has had 'formal' teaching in a different way to the 'school' way - but most children will just 'absorb' reading if they read along with mum or dad
> 
> I had a similar problem with my elder daughter - before we moved to Spain
> 
> she was reading before she started infants school & doing simple maths - I hadn't taught her to read - we just always had a book open when she was on my lap - & she almost taught herself to add & subtract too
> 
> she was bored - so I just had a word with the class teacher & she found something a bit more stimulating for her to do
> 
> when she was 7 we had a short time living in the US - they tested her reading age at 10!
> 
> it has never caused problems at school - just read with your child - you'll both enjoy it! & I would probably in your shoes have books in both languages - again, nothing formal at her age
> 
> both my girls are now tri-lingual (we have a local language here as well as castellano) - we never had formal english lessons - but both have age-apropriate reading & writing ages in English - they have always read in all 3 languages since we moved here


Hi, Thanks for your comments. 

I have been reading 3-4 books every night with both children since they were old enough to hold their heads up. I am an avid reader myself, and always try to sneak some reading time during my day. 

I have friends who home school their kids and 1 friend has taught all 4 of her children to read, so I could do that, while she waits for the Portuguese system to teach her, but then, when she's learning to read in school, will having learnt to read english get in the way of her learning to read Portuguese? Will I be making things more difficult for her, in the long run, by teaching her to read English?

Because we have alot of british friends, who have children the same age, and they are all learning to read and some are streets ahead of my daughter already, I guess there is an element of "keeping up with the Jones", as i worry that my daughter will feel less capable compared to her english friends, as they all sit and read, while she cannot do that yet.....

I am wondering if its harder for ME to wait to learn to read, or if its harder for her!


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## anapedrosa

I don't believe that you will be making it more difficult on your children learning two languages at the same time. I have many of my friends have children who are balanced bilinguals, it's a beautiful thing. My own children are not fluent, though in her 20s my daughter teaches English in Korea and is studying her 4th language. 
My degree is in linguistics and we studied a fair bit on the effects of bilingualism. Balanced bilinguals have been shown to use more of their brain for speech. I'm not saying they are smarter, just that more parts of their brain are activated with speech (left and right sides). 
Teaching children to read in two languages is a gift, but it may be more work. I acquired Portuguese as a child at home without formal training, now I am struggling to learn to write and with the Portuguese grammar. Sometimes I mix up words in French and Portuguese if I have been immersed in one of the languages, but it's a temporary thing.
Good luck with your choices, clearly your children have a caring mom to worry about these things.


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## pinkbuddhagirl

anapedrosa said:


> I don't believe that you will be making it more difficult on your children learning two languages at the same time. I have many of my friends have children who are balanced bilinguals, it's a beautiful thing. My own children are not fluent, though in her 20s my daughter teaches English in Korea and is studying her 4th language.
> My degree is in linguistics and we studied a fair bit on the effects of bilingualism. Balanced bilinguals have been shown to use more of their brain for speech. I'm not saying they are smarter, just that more parts of their brain are activated with speech (left and right sides).
> Teaching children to read in two languages is a gift, but it may be more work. I acquired Portuguese as a child at home without formal training, now I am struggling to learn to write and with the Portuguese grammar. Sometimes I mix up words in French and Portuguese if I have been immersed in one of the languages, but it's a temporary thing.
> Good luck with your choices, clearly your children have a caring mom to worry about these things.


Wow, thanks so much for your informed and reasoned answer. its great that there are people out there who have some experience they can pass on to me! I agree that bilingualism is a wonderful gift. My husband thinks the kids would really benefit from the prime years being taught in Portuguese, as they will then have a complete knowledge of written and spoken Portuguese, along with all the grammar and tenses that the language contains. They can always take english lessons to polish their english grammar and spelling when they are a bit older. (aged 8 or 9....) Certainly, their spoken english is already excellent, and contains a wide range of vocabulary.

Thanks in advance for any more advice!:clap2:


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## siobhanwf

In Canberra they did a trial some years ago with regards to small children and learning a language. They used the 4 areas of the countries capital and taught a different language in each quadrant. I can't remember the actual languages but I do know that two of them were Japanese and Turkish.
They found that up until the age of 5 there is a receptor in the brain which remains fully open until that age and then slowly starts to shut down.

The young brain is inherently flexible, uniquely hard-wired to acquire language naturally. 
Early childhood is the best time for language acquisition. Ease of learning a second language diminishes with age. Between birth and adolescence the brain is hard-wired to acquire language naturally.


If you would like to look at a http://www.languagestars.com/program-overview/research-about-language-for-kids.html


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## anapedrosa

siobhanwf said:


> In Canberra they did a trial some years ago with regards to small children and learning a language. They used the 4 areas of the countries capital and taught a different language in each quadrant. I can't remember the actual languages but I do know that two of them were Japanese and Turkish.
> They found that up until the age of 5 there is a receptor in the brain which remains fully open until that age and then slowly starts to shut down.
> 
> The young brain is inherently flexible, uniquely hard-wired to acquire language naturally.
> Early childhood is the best time for language acquisition. Ease of learning a second language diminishes with age. Between birth and adolescence the brain is hard-wired to acquire language naturally.
> 
> 
> If you would like to look at a http:/www.languagestars.com/program-overview/research-about-language-for-kids.html/


Nice link - some interesting articles, I've bookmarked to show my daughter.

Norm Chomsky (MIT) was the originator of many of the theories around language acquisition. When we are born we hear a broad range of sounds (phonemes), through positive re-enforcement we retain some and lose others. 

One of the challenges of learning language at a later age is learning to distinguish sounds that do not have meaning distinction in our early language(s). The age usually quoted when children start losing the ability to acquire a language to fluency and usually without a significant accent is twelve. Though I can see that five might be when the ability starts to diminish.


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## Akashi

Hi, you better talk with her and decide together. My kids had problems by mixing Portuguese and Japanese, and my son wasn't able to speak any language so and I decided to let Portuguese out for a while and focous on Japanese. Now that they can read and write in Japanese I re started with Portuguese and they have English at school, well they are beautifully confused with the pronunciation of the letters. I believe that there is no right asnwer, maybe asking her wich school she likes best is one solution.


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## baldilocks

It was the norm in England when I was a child that the parents/grandparents started the children off with reading. When I started school at 4½ I could already read, write and do my tables up to 20.

My wife (the daughter of a Spanish speaking father and an American mother) was bilingual when she started school (a French school) so has always been tri-lingual.

I learnt French at school but in adult life I have been trying to learn Spanish - it's hard work. Get the children into languages as early as you can, they will grow up multilingual without turning a hair - if the school doesn't teach do it yourself if you can and get them reading.


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## asmith

I am trilingual (from birth) and my eldest who is 2 can speak Portuguese, English and is in a mandarin speaking school. He quite easily converts from one language to another. He knows to only speak Portuguese with me and English with dad. He occasionally rambles on in Mandarin which I can't reply to! Definitely, the earlier the better. And if one parent speaks only one language you will be amazed how fast they pick it up.


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## anapedrosa

For a chuckle - my husband's father always spoke to him in French and his mother in English. Until he went to school, he tells me that he thought all men spoke French and all women spoke English.


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## donovan

I have two children both went to a semi private school in Madeira the youngest is still there, the older went there till she was 14 but she could not continue at the school so we sent her to another Portuguese school where she fared better and has finished her studies and in now in the UK. I think it has a lot to do with the children's interest and the parents ability to help them. My son also went to a pre school from 6 months old he also did not want to sleep in the afternoon they just let him play as long as he did not disturb the other children, but remember the lifestyle is different and people do tend to go to bed later. With regards to going to an English school I have friends whose children went the only ones I know who stayed were people who were returning to the UK and wanted their children to be taught so they could integrate better upon their return. I personally do not have great faith in many of the Portuguese teachers but that may be me as we all want better for our children.


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## baldilocks

anapedrosa said:


> For a chuckle - my husband's father always spoke to him in French and his mother in English. Until he went to school, he tells me that he thought all men spoke French and all women spoke English.


Bom día
On the other side of the coin, SWMBO's father only ever spoke to her in Spanish and her mother only ever spoke to her in English so she was always bilingual from the start - they then sent her to a French school, meaning she became tri-lingual giving her the grounding for her profession as a tri-lingual interpreter and translator.

For my part, I was brought up with English, had French at school and have had to muddle through on behalf of both of us whenever we went on holiday to places like Belgium, Portugal, Denmark and Holland, then I have had to learn Spanish which as an OAP is not so easy.

As far as children are concerned imerse them in languages as soon as you can (well before school), they pick them up so easily and they will be building a good base for their future.


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