How we split Arabic and English across the day, and why we never translate mid-sentence.
Children do not get confused by two languages. They get confused by two languages mixed inside one sentence by one adult.
So we split by person and place, not by topic. Maryam speaks Arabic in the story corner, all morning, every morning. Yusuf speaks English at the reading table. Nobody translates. If a child does not understand, the adult acts it out, points, draws, or waits — and the meaning arrives without a shortcut.
The result is that by the Sunflowers year most children switch languages the way they switch shoes: automatically, and according to who is in front of them.
Maryam Al-Fahad
Written by — Growora
