By Anja Hofer –
Bojan sits opposite me, playing nervously with his water bottle when he tells me: “Our son, Krastio, was in a bilingual daycare but he was better in English than Dutch. At some point, I overheard neighbors, whose son happens to be in the same class as Krastio that the Dutch level in the school is low because of foreigners. They teach in subgroups depending on the level the children are on. They adjust the assignments and everything according to their skills and how challenging it is. Krastio started everywhere at the lowest level. Two weeks ago, we had a conversation with his teacher at the school, and now he is everywhere at the best level. So, the progress is not seen, maybe they´re jealous.”
Bojan is a Bulgarian father of two, who lives in Amsterdam with his wife Gabriela and agreed to meet at the Bulgarian School, where his children go on Sundays. He opened up about his son´s experience in school and left me behind with questions.
Through Bojan´s story, I can´t help but wonder if multilingualism is only a valued asset when it comes to adulthood – and for example looking for a job or traveling internationally – or if this value also applies to children. Being a multilingual child brings more negative experiences with it, especially if the language spoken in school is weaker compared to their monolingual classmates. But can we measure their language development by only looking at the one main language used at school while most multilingual children have a different first and second language and are more exposed to other languages growing up?
Still, if a child has language deficits, it is consciously or unconsciously treated differently by their teachers and classmates, which can lead to indifference at home in the family as well. Language delays can only occur when we look at standards and their deviations from the norm. For instance, many schools have specific benchmarks for language proficiency and standardized tests to assess language skills, without including the variability of multilingual children. But who decides what the norm is and what the standard is based on, especially in a changing and more international world?
If a child is good at every language, this is praised, but not many people praise the work behind the progress of language learning. In the case of my research, where I focused on Bulgarian families with zero to two-and-a-half-year-old children in the Amsterdam region and their experiences with social connections and relationships with informal and formal organizations, most of my interlocutors speak their first language at home. When two parents have a different first language, the child grows up learning both languages. Then they learn the language of the country in which they live in through the social environment, and (in)formal daycare. In addition to these – often three – languages, some also learn English because of international friends, the neighborhood, or a bilingual daycare, like Gabriela’s and Bojan´s children. This fact is often neglected when discussing the lack of or problems with learning Dutch among migrant children. The use and offerings of language determine the children´s language acquisition, and if the parents or close environment don´t speak Dutch, these stimuli must come from formal or informal services. In this context, the next question arises: Are there enough resources in The Netherlands to provide this kind of support in daycare or schools or is there still a struggle to find staff to meet basic needs in these institutions?
I furthermore wonder, what happens when the task of learning multiple languages is successful? Krastio’s rapid progress in language development is in line with other research which confirms that multilingual children have differences in their vocabulary knowledge in each language, but that their progress is greater than that of their peers, who only speak one language. Despite the fact that research shows the benefits of speaking more than one language, there is still the accusation of lowering the language standards in schools. Shouldn´t we look holistically at children and not focus on this one deficit, when these children bring so much more to the classroom?
Anja Hofer recently graduated from the Master Social and Cultural Anthropology at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.