Saturday School + Why We Left | Raising Multilingual Children

A lot of us dream of being able to send our children to Saturday school or some sort of heritage language school in order to bolster our child's opportunities to interact in the minority language. I was fortunate enough to try this out for 10 weeks with my oldest son. In this video, I share my impressions of the experience and talk about why we ultimately left.
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[@Mac_an_Mheiriceanaigh]

Thank you so much for this video Stephanie!

[@georget2831]

Hello Stefani, we too are raising our children multilingual: English, German, Spanish, and French. I, the father, only speak non-native German & Spanish with our children. And my wife only speaks English with our children. We are in California, the children go to Spanish immersion school here in our hometown. Our children have attended Saturday German school since they were 6 months old. Our children are now 12 years old, and the twins are 10 years old. Three months after the twins were born we started hosting German speaking Au Pairs in our home. We have hosted 8 in the last 12 years. When our children turned 6 years old they were fluent in English, German, and Spanish... So, I enrolled them in the Alliance Française children's program. That was difficult, but I stuck with it. During summer vacations we enrolled our children into German, and Spanish camps in the USA. The summer of 2017 we enrolled our children into a day camp for children in Mexico near the California-Mexico border. Our children had a blast. Fully integrated as the only non-locals. The summer of 2018 we enrolled our children into a summer program in Germany as the only non-locals. Again our children loved it. The summer of 2018 we flew to Mexico City and enrolled our children into a summer camp. Our children loved it again. When the Pandemic started and we were all locked up at home. So, I got lucky and we found a wonderful French tutor online, Monday-Friday for and 2 hours a day. The summer of 2022 we sent our children to French immersion camp at Concordia Language Villages for two weeks and they loved it. Our children speak both German and Spanish well. As far as French,, I am confident they will never go hungry or have a problem in a French speaking country. We have to work more on French. At this point our children need to live in country now for a strong foundation both linguistically and culturally. We are very fortunate, and my wife was granted a sabbatical for next year. My wife and children will fly from LAX to Berlin this July 2023 to send our children to a local school in Berlin for a year. During holidays and summer they plan to travel to France and Spain to practice those languages. I am so sorry Saturday school did not work out for your child right now. Yes, I agree, go back when your child is ready. What made a difference for us, with Saturday school, was we began to volunteer, later we became members of the Saturday school board. Currently, my wife is the German Saturday school Vice President and I just stepped down from the board. I recommend getting involved as best you can with the French Saturday school. I love watching your channel and I celebrate your language journey. For me to be able to speak and travel with my children in all my languages is a dream come true. ❤

[@ter8330]

HOW BEAUTIFUL!!!!

[@rollerrobert4238]

I went to a Russian Saturday school as a child in the UK (I spoke Russian at home and English at school/with friends), and I enjoyed it for a while but got more stressed out by it as I grew older. I think I went from ages 5-12 or so, it was best for me to stop when I did but in retrospect it was one of the better things for me to be able to talk to so many native speakers outside of my own family! I'd definitely suggest trying again as long as it's not a huge stress on everyone, just from my own personal experience looking back on it. Mental health and wellbeing come first though :)

[@ter8330]

I love the way you described what happened. No blaming, no negativity...! Great!

[@Mac_an_Mheiriceanaigh]

It sounds like you made the right choice. More than anything it is important that your son associate French with positive things (like his relationship with you!) Taking a break and coming back later sounds like the perfect solution.

[@LiveYourLanguage]

I agree. After stepping back and leaving the Saturday school, everyone felt so much relief and I knew it was the right choice. Thanks for watching!

[@mub9075]

Thanks for the honesty! We were in a similar situation just few weeks ago, I decided to leave a language club and an amazing community for now because of behaviour issues. While exposure to the language and the community is important, It’s crucial that children have positive experiences and feel able to participate with others.

[@LiveYourLanguage]

Thanks for watching and commenting. I totally agree. As so many others say, the child's well-being should always come first and it's important not to let the pressure of providing language input for our kids make us lose sight of that.

[@danielaosegueda4712]

Your son sounds like a typical 3 year old with regards to his behavior. Not being able to sit still or easily follow directions is developmentally appropriate. It sounds like the teachers’ expectations of what he should be able to do were the problem, not your sons behavior. Young kids can learn how to follow directions but constantly shaming them by putting them in a corner or sending them to the principal is not going to help them develop those skills.

[@LyzJGV]

Thank you for your video Stephanie. I surely missed them. As a French person I unfortunately can tell you that discipline is central at school and preschool in France. Indeed it can be a big problem for some kids especially kids who first attended school abroad. This is the case of a little Brazilian girl in my son s class. She used to live in India and attended Montessori before the family moved the France. After three years here she still struggles at times. « Le coin » is still sometimes used though more often now « the boisterous child » is invited to have a quiet time in the same room. Regarding cursive it s indeed important here but definitely not what is thought first. So some things are a bit surprising and old fashioned indeed. Altogether I think you made the choice. It was not the time notre the correct format for your son. We have Wednesday schools here in France for families who want their children to be exposed to English. I never registered my son cause I know he’d have hated it. And I want him to be thrilled about English - our minority language. Thanks again for your honesty here and sharing your experience

[@LiveYourLanguage]

Lily, thank you so much for watching and for offering your incredibly valuable thoughts on this topic as a French person. It's helpful to know that this is a big emphasis in the school system so that we know what to expect (but it's also comforting to know that things are moving away from "the corner" and other shaming forms of discipline). I'm sorry to hear that your son's classmate is still having trouble. This is an issue we're going to have to help my son with and I'm thankful we have some space and time to work on it without the pressure and stress of the Saturday school. I am of course seeking more ways to get my sons interaction with natives; were just exploring more flexible options at the moment. Always love hearing from you! Hope you and your son are well!

[@ter8330]

My grandmother went to Saturday school as do some of my cousins....!