[clara]

Hi,

I have three daughters, all of them are in a multi-lingual environment: my twelve year old grew up learning Swiss/ German & English, she has now been in an Italian school for a year and learnt Italian in leaps and bounds and is doing brilliantly. We moved from Switzerland to Italy last August. the two little ones
*and a half and two speak a mixture of all three(Swiss Italian and Englsih.
We have never put any demands on them to have to learn anything by a certain stage or age: while each show preferences to respond in a language or in the case of the toddler's an 'interlanguage'- they understand each one and have no problem communicating with us or one another. What is noticable is that they are all extremely musical children.

Linguistic precision is not the objective - expression and fearlessness inlearning is: we never focus on what they cannot do yet or criticise when the grammar is incorrect: gentle correcting and coaxing is way and beyond enough.

I have noticed a larger capacity to concentrate in the toddlers, when I compare them to kids whose parents are uni-lingual. They seem to listen more intently and reproduce sounds with a speed and accuracy that is amazing.

I recommend it highly: in today's world it is more than just doing them a favour. It provides a very sound basis for learning in general.