Best way to teach English to 3 years old?

[Joopa]

We had our interview on last week and we should receive final decision from NZIS before Christmas.
As moving from Finland to NZ finally seems to come true, I'd like to hear your opinion on how to make adaption to new culture and language as easy as possible to our 3 years old daughter?

Is there some special kindergartens etc. which are focused on helping non-english speaking kids to learn English?
All experiences on kids learning English in NZ are very welcome?

Regards
Joopa

[JCM]

Hi Joopa,

I've not heard of kindergartens like this. Maybe someone else has?

I know that many of the primary and secondary schools here have ESOL teachers who help children with English.

[Tia Maria]

Once again can't help with the New Zealand end. But my son currently attends a very mixed primary school in the UK. Turkish, greek, indian, african and yes, a friend of his is from Finland. Over half the class have English as their second language. The school does very well in helping all the children achieve.

The advice they gave parents, who do not speak English very well themselves, is essentially to let the school take care of that side of things. In just a year the children's English has improved greatly, purely by playing with other english speaking children on a daily basis. (The adults have a tougher time as its difficult to get places on night courses). Children's ability to learn languages at an early age, is incredible.

They said if the adults English was poor, they should speak their own language at home with the children. As they can help the children learn all the other essential skills - drawing, enjoyment of books, simple numbers, physical and emotional development etc etc.

I am sure there are lots of different theories on what's best, but the children in my sons class, no matter what nationality, have all learnt English through play. Even those who had no English at the beginning of the year.

I've heard Finland has one of the best education systems in the world. I'll be interested to see how you think New Zealand compares!

Tia

PS It only took a couple of days to get our interview result. So hopefully you'll get your reply before Christmas. Best of luck.

[Nienke]

I will have the same problem when we arrive in New Zealand. My son will be 3 years old as well.
Just putting your daughter in a kindergarten may just be all she needs to learn the language simply through exposure to it. That is my plan anyway, to put my son in a kindergarten for 2 days a week or so, so that he will learn the language before he goes to school at 5.
Children pick up foreign languages pretty fast, so I am not worrying. When he was two years old, during a vacation in France after already 2 weeks he was saying 'au revoir' to French and 'bye bye' to English people

[femke]

Hi There,
Have to agree with Nienke here, my daughter is Dutch born, though i am English, from day one i spoke Eng to her, and my husband spoke Dutch. By the time she was 3yrs and ready for kindy, her main language was Eng, she was with me all day, my husband and i have always spoke eng in the home, so yes the eng language was for her the norm. I worried that once she started school she might have a language barrier needn't of worried, kids learn so quickly, (not like her mother who took years to get to grips with this language ) Anyway my point being children are very resilient, and even if they have to use their hands and feet, they will get by. At 3yrs of age i am sure your daughter will learn eng very quickly.

[Joopa]

Thanks to all for replies.

I got some first hand experience on how non-finnish speaking childrens learn Finnish.
I met a kindergarten teacher who works in Helsinki and has seen many foreign kids in her group. She told me that for example a 3 years old boy from Brazil needed 3 months to learn Finnish so that he managed to communicate with other kids. After 6 months he spoke Finnish fluently.
So it seems that we will just find a way a place where she could be in contact with NZ kids and look how fast she catch up the English.