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Hi there. We are Russian- Japanese couple in Nederland. Our kid is also 5 now, she is homeschooled at present : in nederland school is obligatory from the age of 5, like in England.

She is intensively instructed in Russian and Japanese to read, do math and arts, develop metalinguistic skills in age appropriate style.

2 times a week Japanese teacher visits-4 hours, on Saturday there is  a Russian group with teacher- 4 hours, once a week we take her to Amsterdam to Japanese kindergarden-2 hours.

Both languages are meeting their exposition  minimum of 18 hours a week in total .

What happens with the language of environment- Dutch- is a family drama)))

All local kids are in school. There are absolutely no homeschoolers here. if there were, if we could provide her the same amount of time  in Dutch, it would have  been enough to stimulate basic learning of Dutch, but without any hope for proficiency.

To my opinion, the child should study in the certain language to aquire it on a native speaker's level.

We also do not speak Dutch at home, no TV .

The kid has been doing 7 hours a week of Gymnastiks with Dutch kids, already for 2 years, stayed 2 or 3 times a week in Creche at my sports club, to play with dutch kids, goes out to parties and playgrounds, did dance class in Dutch- and speaks out NOTHING, forgets regulary how to ask a name, or reply how she is today or how old she is)))

In native languages she seems to be at the same level as her monolingual peers, she is not retarded in any way.

She can react to some basic commands with looking at the others, she can tell that she would like to do the elemet herself, and a couple of other essential phrases, but there is completely no verbal  communication with the others.

I do not see it as a "language aquisition " process but rather a survival))).

At least in school both professional assistance and  children's environmet may provide necessary "language pressure" conditions to stimulate proper communication and language learning.

Since i withdrew the kid from local school, I should not expect any development of the local language.

We do not need it that vitally, since we are staying temporarily for work, but it is a pity that  the languages do not come magically by some sort of brain osmosis from the environment.

asakura tatiana,

From reading your post I do not see anything unusual in your child's development of Dutch.  You do not say how long you have been there or how old she was when you arrived but it seems from what you have written that she is in the receptive development stage which is common in second language learners.  It is very common that they are able to understand the new language much faster than they are comfortable being speakers of the language.  My guess is that if you were to continue living there for the long term you would see the Dutch become stronger.

Mamatotoro,

I think I would agree with you that the community can be a very strong teacher of language.  I have friends from Mexico now living in the US that only speak Spanish to their daughter.  She is now 6 and has attended school in English since she was four.  She is completely biliterate and bilingual and her parents have never waivered and stopped their language pattern of only Spanish with her and letting her get English from the community.  I only use Spanish (the minority language here) with my kids and they get English from the community and from their dad when he is not working.  If you are going to homeschool I would say that you can continue your language pattern and just make sure to get her out into the community as well so that her English is supported too.  You could maybe have her join an English speaking playgroup once a week or see if there are inexpensive classes (maybe art or sports) that she could take once or twice a week.  Beyond that everytime you are out buying food, visiting museums, taking walks, she is hearing and learning. 

Best of luck and keep coming back to MLL.  Hopefully there will be more bilingual homeschool posts soon

Maria