TCK myths: language learning by osmosis

If our children spend their formative years in Turkey, which is our plan, they will be Third Culture Kids - TCKs for short. One of the most commonly used definitions of a TCK is:

“A Third Culture Kid (TCK) is a person who has spent a significant part of his or her developmental years outside the parents’ culture. The TCK builds relationships to all of the cultures, while not having full ownership in any. Although elements from each culture are assimilated into the TCK’s life experience, a sense of belonging is in relationship to others of similar background.” (Pollock and Van Reken)

J and S are growing up in a culture that is not mine and L's culture or their passport culture. Because they are growing up in a different culture to the UK, they will never feel fully British. But with British parents and a British passport, they will never feel fully Turkish either. They will develop a strong relationship with both British and Turkish cultures but their sense of belonging and identity will be to a third culture i.e. to the group of people who have also grown up in different cultures from their parents. In other words, J and S are likely to find more in common with other TCKs (even if they are, for example, American but grew up in South Asia) than they will with those who are British and have lived in the UK their whole lives.

There are many, many things that have been written about the advantages and challenges of being a TCK by people far more knowledgeable than me so I'm not going to repeat them. But I do want to dispel some of the myths about TCKs.

One that I have heard several times relates to TCKs naturally achieving fluency in the language of their host country. It's the different variants of 'your children will be so privileged, they'll grow up speaking Turkish', with the assumption that just because we live in Turkey, our children will learn to speak Turkish fluently and be bilingual.

Unfortunately, this is not true. Language learning by osmosis is sadly not a recognised method of language acquisition, much as I wish it were. I think that the view is that because children learn and grow so fast, they will just automatically 'pick up' a second (or third etc.) language by being around it and hearing it.

However, it takes time and effort for anyone, including children, to learn a language. Unsurprisingly, children who are immersed from a young age in a day care setting or school where the second language is the main language spoken do learn the second language well. But that is because they are spending eight hours a day hearing that language, five days a week for the entire academic year! I have no doubt that if I were to spend that amount of time in a Turkish speaking environment, my Turkish proficiency (at least in listening and comprehension) would improve significantly. Even then, despite the immersion, it is very common for a child not to speak the second language at all for a year or so.

The advantage young children do have in learning a language is that they may be less self conscious about speaking the second language, feel less pressure to be perfect and speak with a better accent. But it is not necessarily true that the younger a child is, the quicker they will learn a second language. Language skills transfer from one language to another and a young child may not yet have training or skills in their mother tongue to transfer to a second language.

We hope that our children will speak Turkish well. We're not actually aiming for them to be bilingual or to be academically fluent in Turkish. The ability to speak more than one language is a great advantage - as well as the practical benefits of speaking a second language, it also stretches and develops the brain in different ways. But we are realistic enough to know that English will be their first language and that mastery of English, not just proficiency, is vital. So we are planning and aiming for the boys to be fluent at a conversational level in Turkish but accepting that they will not have the academic fluency to complete their education in Turkish or be at the same level as their Turkish peers in reading and writing.

As our children are still young and spent most of their time at home with me, they naturally hear a lot of English and we have to work hard on their Turkish. It's been suggested that we could put J in a creche or preschool to improve his Turkish but for various reasons that's not something we're considering at the moment. The boys hear Turkish a fair amount on Sundays and if we go to Turkish people's houses or people come to us. But that is not enough for them to learn Turkish. Sometimes L and I will speak Turkish at home and try and encourage the boys by speaking to them in Turkish. Generally if I'm out in public with the boys and there are other people around, I'll try and talk to them in Turkish. We also have books and songs in Turkish, a lot of the (limited) screen time they are allowed is in Turkish (thank goodness for Thomas the Tank Engine dubbed into Turkish!). They are also currently using an online program called DinoLingo which is designed to teach a second language through videos and animated stories. And one of the most useful things we are now doing is that the boys have an oyun ablası ("play big sister") who comes one morning a week. She looks after the boys, plays with them and speaks to them entirely in Turkish which allows me a couple of hours to get some admin work/language study/rest in. From next week, J will also start a twice weekly gymnastics lesson at a local sports centre. This will obviously be entirely in Turkish, which I think will be quite a learning curve for him and maybe not very easy to start with, but should be good for him.

And with all that, so far J is actually able to understand some basic Turkish. He'll speak some odd words and phrases but generally prefers not to speak in Turkish right now, which is very normal. S doesn't speak at all yet in any comprehensible language, although he understands a fair amount of English and I'm pretty sure he understands 'yapma!' in Turkish (which translates as 'don't do that!).

We understand that learning a language is a process, it takes time and children learn in their own time and we're grateful for the progress that they are making. But we are definitely conscious that TCKs do not automatically learn the language of the country they live in and that it will take time, effort and active work on our part to help J and S learn Turkish.