Hi moshi2!
Think St Nichs is still gonna be your best choice.
Actually, nothing against the standard of neighbourhood schs here. In fact, if it means I need to send my children to a nearby neighbourhood sch is fine. Just not within walking distance for the kids so that they won't find excuses to hang around sch after sch hours unnecessarily.
I was quite lucky that my parents worked hard to place my brother and myself in good schools right from the start. I don't think I'm ever smart in any way, just lucky that I had good schools to nurture me. And good schools for us then was also nearby - lucky, lucky then!
Is it necessary to start a third lang for children now? I'd be happy if my children pick up Mandarin well along the way. In the strictest definition, true bilingualism can never exist. There will always be a predominant language in which the brain processes thoughts, i.e the cognitive language (thinking language), which in the case of my children now, i believe, is English. Evidence: I've been noticing Bryan's transferring the continuous form of the English lang. as he combines action words in Mandarin to signify an ongoing process, in a way, he's thinking of expressing time. However, the expressions of time in Mandarin are usually made in combination with adverbs of time. (Chinese teachers, correct me if I'm wrong here.) So in a way, he thinks more predominantly in Eng, speaks it and speaks less of Chinese, although he'll instinctively blurt out phrases in Mandarin at times. I never knew that until we were back in SG where there's a natural environment for him to speak Mandarin again. Then even more seldon, he'll use a few German phrases to signify displeasures... but very, very rare... So in reality, we speak mostly 1st lang, often use 2nd lang, but occasionally 3rd lang.
It's always good to let a child start young on foreign languages. But there must always be a stage for them to perform on... they need to use it. Also starting with many languages, children usually speak a mixture of many languages. Unless of course, they are constantly being encouraged to speak in one language at a time. So parents, you need to guide them accordingly in each language. Personally, I don't think learning a third lang will cause any negative influence on the standard of the second lang. But to be effectively trilingual, only time can tell. Give the child ten years to make any assessments. Malay is a very good choice - apricot, thumbs up on your brilliant decision. It isn't exactly a foreign language as it's being spoken and used in SG. Anything not spoken or used in SG is foreign. So mommies, if you are thinking of sending your children for foreign lang enrichment classes like French, German, Spanish etc... save your money and invest eleswhere. Unless you can provide a play environment where you can encourage your children to speak these foreign lang, sending them to an expensive foreign lang class is futile.
Let your child take the lead in wanting to learn a new language. Starting young is not the key to mastering a language, it is interest and motivation and the fun of learning the language that can guarantee success... I think that's why all the mommies here are so hands on and engaged in providing their children a fun and interesting learning environment.
that's my two cents worth on third lang. learning...
