Full time helper - effect on child's acquisition of English?

E

ElizaD

Registered User
I wondered if anyone could share their thoughts as to whether having a child cared for by a helper full time, from the age that they start to talk up to when they go to school, has affected the child's acquisition of English? I'm worried that having a non-native speaker as primary carer will confuse the child as to what is correct and what is not, or slow the process down.

Would be very interested in your experience to help me make some big decisions about going back to work.
 
If this is a concern for you then you should probably ensure that you employ a helper with a high level of English.
 
If you are worried, make sure to employ a helper who speaks excellent English (there are many). You will also need to speak to your child a lot yourself, read to him/her, etc. A toddler doesn't speak English correctly anyway, so as long as you and his/ her school are consistently correcting grammer I can't imagine any long term issues with language acquistion. Of all the things I have heard friends/ colleages/ acquaintences in HK moan about relating to their helpers and children, this has never been one of them.
 
m_c said:
If this is a concern for you then you should probably ensure that you employ a helper with a high level of English.
Click to expand...
If someone is *that* concerned, they should not be living in a city where the vast majority of the population speaks a non-English language as their mother tongue. The child is going to get exposed to foreign languages in all kinds of places all day long.

Of all the things to worry about in Hong Kong, this is the first I've heard of this particular one...
 
I think this is a totally normal concern. Your child's English is certainly affected by exposure. My sister was mostly raised by our helper and her English acquisition wasn't perfect but it soon smoothed out with proper schooling and lots of reading - nothing that isn't reversible. A child's mind is very pliable.
 
it really didn't make much difference to my kids' language development. we had our helper from a week before my first was born until he was almost 6. there were a few things that they said differently, such as "drawer" but that was about it.

if you and your husband still speak english with your child, then really, having 1 person around who speaks english as a second language won't be that big a deal.
 
I know many people who were children of immigrants - the parents English language skills are often inferior to many of the domestic helpers who work over here, but the children universally have native or near-native English language skills due to being raised in an English speaking environment (depending on how old they were when they migrated). When I was in Australia, I taught some Philippino kids who moved to Australia when they were between 3-10 years old (there were 5 siblings). None of them spoke any English upon arrival, but after a few years, they were doing great - particularly the younger kids. If they can thrive then how much more so can our kids who are mostly in English speaking environments (schools, playgroups etc), even if one of the three main adult influences in their lives does have "non-native English". There may be minor issues, but I'm sure they would be easily corrected.
 
Many thanks to all for your interesting and helpful responses. With the notable exception of HowardCoombs:

howardcoombs said:
If someone is *that* concerned, they should not be living in a city where the vast majority of the population speaks a non-English language as their mother tongue. The child is going to get exposed to foreign languages in all kinds of places all day long.

Of all the things to worry about in Hong Kong, this is the first I've heard of this particular one...
Click to expand...

Of course I am delighted that my child (like me) will become accustomed to hearing Cantonese, Mandarin, Tagalog, Indonesian and a plethora of other foreign languages - rather offensive of you to suggest otherwise. My concern was about sustained exposure to incorrect English at a crucial developmental stage. But it seems that this is nothing to worry about.
 
ElizaD said:
Of course I am delighted that my child (like me) will become accustomed to hearing Cantonese, Mandarin, Tagalog, Indonesian and a plethora of other foreign languages - rather offensive of you to suggest otherwise. My concern was about sustained exposure to incorrect English at a crucial developmental stage.
Click to expand...
I fail to see the difference between exposure to your helper vs exposure to Cantonese, Mandarin, French, Hindi and countless other languages your child will get exposed to at school, friends house and at the playground.
But it seems that this is nothing to worry about.
Click to expand...
Indeed.
 
howardcoombs said:
I fail to see the difference between exposure to your helper vs exposure to Cantonese, Mandarin, French, Hindi and countless other languages your child will get exposed to at school, friends house and at the playground.
Indeed.
Click to expand...

Howard, there is a big difference between general ambient exposure to other languages and daily interaction between a carer and a child - even if the child-carer communication is in order to achieve a practical end it is likely to result in the child learning the language by repetition of what he hears. And I'd expect a good helper to make active efforts to encourage the child to speak/learn. On the other hand, unless I chose to send my son to a Mandarin playgroup (which I may well do), or he has a little friend who speak to him in (e.g.) Cantonese his exposure to other languages will be ambient at best.

Further, even more active exposure to other languages is unlikely to result in confusion with English; I have it on good authority (numerous bilingual families) that kids are very good at knowing which words belong to which language and don't mix them up mid-sentence very often. If he learns bits of those other languages it will be from native speakers and the grammar will be correct. That is not the same as learning a language from someone who does not speak it correctly (this is no slight on the intelligence of domestic helpers by the way, just a recognition that learners never get it right 100% - I'd have the same issue if my husband was the non-native speaker!). I hope that clarifies.
 
I would say there's nothing to worry about, my daughter uses all sorts of colloquialisms, my favourite being mummyaaa from her Cantonese friends and oh my with a very Phillipinna accent, I find it very cute. My husband admits that most of his English is spoken with Chinese grammar applied, but all my Eurasian friends who attended ESF schools speak grammatically correctly and are more likely to be able to tell you why a sentence is grammatically correct／incorrect than most kids educated in the UK. I am pretty certain that with a little bit of help on my part she'll speak English well. I also hope that she manages to learn mandarin and cantonese too, she's doing ok so far, my biggest concern is that at two my daughter and can already talk to her dad in mandarin thus totally keeping me out of the conversation. But I can't help feeling proud when I hear her switch between languages a huge advantage that I will never have.
Posted via Mobile Device
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top