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26/09/2011Kids in Spain: Learning the Spanish language

Kids in Spain: Learning the Spanish language Spain for children is a big adjustment when it comes to learning Spanish and studying in Spain. Read our firsthand account about kids in Spain from another country and how they handle the adjustments in Spanish schools and their new Spanish environment.

It was only a small exhibition, one of those local things. Up on the stage, seven young schoolgirls were giving a display of traditional flamenco dancing - and they were good, too.

The proud father of one sat next to me, and caught me somewhat by surprise when he remarked, offhandedly, that five of the seven dancers were English.

English children at Spanish schools; it's one of the biggest problems for the new, younger element of expatriates along the Costas. Mum and Dad want to live the dream - but the dream can be a nightmare for the British child.

A change of school is traumatic for any youngster; add the necessity of a change of language and it can be disastrous if not handled properly.

Francisco Pasqual is a teacher in a small primary school near Fuensanta, a village in inland Almeria. This is Spanish Spain, with nary a crane to be seen. Francisco's school has around 120 pupils, of which nine-year-old Jordan Cullenham is the only English child.

"It's hard being the only one when you don't speak a word of Spanish," Francisco told us.

"When Jordan started, we had one other pupil who spoke a little English, so we paired her up with Jordan to introduce him around. At first it was difficult, but we made up games, always involving learning a few words of Spanish.

Schools in Spain

"After a while, he began to get into the spirit of things, and now his Spanish is greatly improved."

Jordan's parents, Jack, 37, and his wife, Sylvia, 34, moved from Nottingham, in Britain, to restore a finca just outside the village. They had to do their bit, too.

They encouraged Jordan to learn new words and received a lot of support from other parents in the area. In under a year, Jordan was competent in the language; in two years he was fluent, thoroughly enjoying correcting his parents and translating for them at the local shops.

Encarna Rodrigues is a teacher as well, at the Salvador Ruso primary school in Torrevieja, a bustling coastal town near Alicante with some 150 different nationalities on the local Empadronimiento.

Rodrigues speaks good English, as do many of her colleagues, but that doesn't necessarily make it easier for the pupils.

"We have to teach the pupils in Spanish," she told us, "That is our language, and that is what they have to learn.

"But when you have British children, and Russian, and Moroccan, and a dozen other nationalities in the class, it can get very hard.

"They speak Spanish in the classroom, but when they go outside, they all congregate with their fellows, and immediately start speaking in their native language again. It all seems to depend how old they are when they start school here, in Spain."

We spoke to several Spanish teachers, and, essentially, they all said the same thing; the younger they are when they start, the faster and more enthusiastically they learn.

And, of course, the more their parents help and encourage them, the faster they begin to integrate.

"You can tell the ones whose parents really encourage them," said Rodrigues.

"Even when they're working out here and might not speak Spanish very well themselves. If they are willing to give their time to help their children, the results can be astonishing. The top girl in my class is English, and she is fluent after just three years; I can see her heading for university in time."

But it's a lot, lot harder for the older children. Maria Serrano, a teacher at a secondary school in nearby Guardamar del Segura, told us: "The teenage foreign children, I'm sorry to say, just don't seem to want to learn Spanish or to mix with their Spanish fellow students. They just keep together, and they seem to encourage one another not to try to learn."

 Every teenager tends to have a streak of rebellion in them, and being in a foreign school, having to learn a foreign language, gives them something very positive to rebel about.

Without significant parental encouragement, and perhaps a lot of discipline, they will not learn, and will deny themselves the means of making a good living in their adopted country.

So what lessons can parents learn from this? Does their child stand a better chance, educated at a smaller, inland school?

Yes, probably - but will they stand a better chance of employment when they leave school? And if they go to a larger, coastal-town school with plenty of fellow-Brits around them, will they be able to integrate and learn the language?

Again, yes, but it will be harder, and they may well need a lot more support and encouragement from their parents - and possibly top-up private tuition, as well.

Ian Frewer / Expatica


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