Hellobee

Since Little Cotton Candy was a few months shy of three, he has been attending a small in-home language immersion preschool. We love the school and the teachers, especially his head teacher who is also the owner of the school. It is not a Montessori school, but the teachers use some Montessori materials and methods, including letting the children direct some of the activities for the day. The school is on the small side, and it is a mixed age group, accommodating children ages two through five. Little Cotton Candy started off going three days a week and learning one new language (Spanish); when he was three and a half, there was an opening in the five-day program, so he started attending school five days a week and learning French on those extra days.

Little Cotton Candy building at preschool

What is a language immersion preschool?

A language immersion preschool is a school where the teachers speak to the students only in the target language, and students are expected to respond only in the target language, regardless of the languages spoken at home. On Mondays through Wednesdays, the target language is Spanish; on Thursdays and Fridays it is French. Many of the children speak either French or Spanish at home, but some (like Little CC) speak only English at home.

Was it a hard transition from the home language to the school language(s)?

Because this was Little Cotton Candy’s first experience with care away from home, the transition was hard for him, but I don’t believe the language barrier made it more difficult. His teachers told him he was welcome to respond to questions using English at first, and he was able to pick up on visual cues and start learning basic routines very quickly.

From what I learned in college about early language acquisition as a linguistics major, the earlier a child starts to hear a new language, the easier it will be to acquire. By the time puberty hits, human beings are at a significant disadvantage for acquiring new languages.

Little CC with his face painted, ready to perform in one of his preschool presentations

How do you reinforce the language-learning at home?

We have loved seeing Little Cotton Candy blossom and grow while learning two new languages. He has gotten very comfortable with Spanish, and he is getting more and more comfortable with French. Although Mr. Cotton Candy and I are not fluent in either Spanish or French, we try to reinforce the language skills Little CC is acquiring by playing music in Spanish and French, reading books to him in Spanish (my French pronunciation is not good enough for reading), and occasionally letting him watch videos in Spanish or French.

What are the benefits to language immersion?

There are so many! We love that being able to speak and think in more than one language exposes him to different structures and ways of thinking, as well as different cultures. Studies have also shown that learning multiple languages is good for your brain. We hope that he will be able to continue learning Spanish in a dual-language program in elementary school, with the ultimate goal of him becoming bilingual, or at least able to converse with people in Spanish. If not, that’s okay, too. I believe the benefits of learning languages extend beyond just being able to speak a second or third language.

Any drawbacks?

I wish that Mr. CC and I were better able to reinforce the Spanish and French at home. I can read Spanish okay thanks to the six years of it I took, and for a while I was listening to an audio program to learn French, but my language skills are not where I want them to be. The only other drawback I can think of is that once Little Cotton Candy gets to public school, he will have to transition to using English at school, even if he gets into a dual-language program. Seeing as how that is his native language and what he is most comfortable speaking, I don’t think it will be much of an issue. Finally, there is cost. At four years old, Little CC could be attending pre-K for much cheaper, maybe even free (I haven’t looked into it yet); but we love his school and the community there so much that it is worth the cost.

Do you have any questions about language immersion preschool for me? Would you consider it for your children?