For her 6th birthday party (advanced due to the early start of the school holidays), my daughter invited six classmates – representing a stunning seven nationalities. I was prepared for that, witness the cake: What I was not prepared for was the guests singing Happy Birthday in not two,  not three, but four languages, thanks […]

A month ago, our 5-year-old daughter started her final preschool year at a new school, one with a program for native speakers of German. She has one hour of German class each day, and the other week she came home with this cute rhyme:

Today, my daughter had a chocolate for dessert and afterwards, tried to put the ribbon back around the chocolate box. It’s a very tight ribbon, but yesterday she succeeded. Today, after quite some struggling, she declared: “Für die große Schule muss man schreiben, vorlesen und Schokolade essen, und dann wieder zumachen.” “At the big [elementary] […]

Today I came across this article on a UK website: Languages – Gift of bilingualism is too often ‘squandered’ Some quotes: [Professor Joseph Lo Bianco, of the University of Melbourne] who advised the Australian government on its languages policy, said it was of “critical importance” that education systems across the world fostered a “multilingual mentality”, […]

Our girl is in school now. Her first day was quite memorable in that, as we were early and waiting at the door, she knocked on it and called “Lehrer, aufmachen!” (Teacher, open up!) When I asked her after her first (very short) day what her teacher had said, she told me “alle hinsetzen” (sit […]