I have 2 boys age 13 and 15. They have been raised in Canada since 1998. We have surrounded them with North American culture and never tried to teach them our mother tongue language. I and my wife are from Iran and we speak Farsi to each other but when it gets to kids I only speak in English and my wife mixes both languages.
They only watch English TV channels and movies, listen English music, read English books and have friends mostly from English speaking population of Canada. Bottom line is that they are immersed in English.
I thought my approach benefits my kids and they will be as fluent as their friends when it gets to English proficiency. The reality tells different story, although they are good students with A marks in school, they are not proficient, mostly use simple words and not the sophisticated ones, they have trouble to express themselves or describe events and sometimes use wrong words in their dialogue. On the positive note they have no accent according to their friends and neighbors.
I really feel frustrated because I can go back to Farsi at this age because they only know basic words and every time I have to translate it into English. I have been trying to improve my English skill but as it is obvious in my writing I hit the wall and reached to the point which is really hard to raise the intelligence level of our conversation with my kids.
Is my problem common?
Is it possible that my kids are not fluent in English because I haven’t spoken to them in Farsi?
Is it true that if you have understood a word in mother tongue language then you automatically can correlate the equivalent word in English and sinks in the brain and that is why my kids having problem with English because they haven’t heard it from us so they can’t use this equivalency mechanism?
How should I proceed? Should I continue with I have been trying in the past 10 years?
A lot of people say that due to the fact they are immersed in English they will be Ok when they reach adult age. Shouldn’t have they been fluent by now?
Ardalan, Canada
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Your boys basically are raised in Canada (they are there when they were 3 & 5), according to you, their main language is English. Yet, they are not showing the standard that people will expected from the above background, the only possibility that I could think of is quality. Or, sometime as you may knw, some people is better in science, maths rather than in language learning. so long your boys happy and feel comfortable in thier schooling, I don't see much problem for them to be less excel in English.
JG, Malaysia
In my point of view, time plays a important role. We could always learn one language if we are in the environment or if we put our time in. The problem of mastering any of them, I think is very much depend on the persons or the environment too. We cannot speak good english or any language if our teacher, our family or our friend don't. So I think it is time and environment issue. For example, I am sure my niece that I stay with could easily pick up her english speaking if I could speak good english even though her parent do not understand english. The problem is my english is very limited. So unless her teacher in Childcare centre put in a lots of efforts, I guess, the way she speak english will be very much only up to my standard.
JG, Malaysia
