Growing Up with Two Languages: What We See in Our Nursery Every Day

Many of the families who come through our doors in Marlow, Hazlemere and High Wycombe speak more than one language at home. For some, it is a deliberate choice made before their child was even born. For others, it has simply always been the way their family communicates. Either way, parents often arrive with the same quiet worry: is my child going to be confused?

The short answer, from everything we observe here at The House That Jack Built, is no. But that does not mean the journey looks the same for every child, and it is worth understanding what bilingual development actually tends to look like in the early years.

What we often see in the early months and years

One of the most common things we notice is what practitioners sometimes call a silent period. A child who is hearing two languages, or who has moved from a home language into an English-speaking nursery environment, may become quieter for a time. They are listening, absorbing, sorting. It can look like a step backwards, but in our experience it is nearly always a sign that something important is happening underneath.

We also see children mixing their two languages, sometimes mid-sentence. A child might use the word they know best, whichever language it comes from, and switch fluidly between the two. This is not confusion. It is a completely normal feature of bilingual development, and it tends to settle naturally over time as both languages become more established.

What takes a little longer for many bilingual children is vocabulary depth in each individual language. They may know words in one language that they do not yet have in the other. Taken together, across both languages, their total vocabulary is often at least comparable to their monolingual peers, sometimes broader. We try to hold that bigger picture in mind when we are thinking about a child's progress.

How we approach it in the nursery

We follow the EYFS statutory framework, which places communication and language at the heart of everything we do. For bilingual children, that means thinking carefully about how we communicate with them, not just what we communicate.

A few things we find genuinely useful:

• Repetition and routine. Consistent language around daily routines, mealtimes, transitions, gives children the scaffolding to build understanding in English without losing confidence.
• Visual cues and gesture. We use pictures, objects and natural gesture to support meaning, especially in the early stages of settling in.
• Never discouraging the home language. We always encourage families to keep speaking their first language at home. A strong foundation in the home language supports English development, not the other way around.
• Talking to parents. Our key person system means there is always someone who knows your child well and can share what they are noticing. If a parent tells us their child uses a particular word at home, we will use it too.

We celebrate linguistic diversity across all three of our settings. The books, resources and imaginative play materials we offer reflect a range of cultures and languages, and we think that matters. Children who see their home life reflected in the nursery settle more easily and engage more freely.

When to seek extra support

Bilingual development is not the same as a language delay, but language delays do occur in bilingual children just as they do in monolingual children. The important thing is not to assume that slower progress in one language is automatically explained by bilingualism.

If you have a genuine concern about your child's communication, raise it. Talk to your key person, your health visitor, or your GP. Early support, where it is needed, always makes a difference. We work with families and external professionals to identify and support individual needs, and we would always rather have the conversation early.

Families across the Marlow area, Hazlemere and High Wycombe can also access speech and language support through local health services, and we are happy to help you navigate that if you are not sure where to start.

A note for parents choosing a nursery

If your child is growing up bilingual, it is worth asking any nursery you visit how they approach home languages, how they communicate with families whose first language is not English, and how they handle the settling-in period for children who are new to English. These questions will tell you a lot about the culture of the setting.

If you would like to see how we work with bilingual children and families at The House That Jack Built, we would love to show you around. Book a show-around at whichever of our sites suits you best, whether that is Marlow Bottom, Hazlemere or Flackwell Heath. If you would prefer a more relaxed first visit, our Stay and Play sessions are a lovely way to see the nursery in action before making any decisions.