How often do we hear of families who have been courted away from their home country, traditions, family and language, to bravely start again in Menorca. A romantic notion, a bid for a new start, a second chance... reasons perfectly valid for an adult - but not always for the children. It all needs to be thoroughly thought out before taking the plunge.

Parents who make the decision to abandon all and come to live in Menorca, do so believing that

• The children will benefit from an excellent local education - maybe.
• Half the world is bi-lingual - so why not the children?
• The children will easily pick up the language - they do.
• The children will benefit from being bi/tri lingual - perhaps.
• The children will make new friends - undoubtedly.
• The children will be allowed greater independence living on a safe island - happily.
• The children could always go back to their country of origin if they can't settle - they rarely do.
• Children settle into their new environments amazingly quickly;

They make friends instantly, and within no time at all are able to speak with native speaker accents and swear with unfortunate fluency. They are frequently embarrassed by their parents' inadequate attempts at communicating in the local language - and flatly refuse to translate for them!

It is an unequal race: the children will be fluent in both Castellano and Catalan before a normally intelligent parent has leaned to pronounce the 'n' in ano (year) and has grasped that certain parts of the body are actually masculine or feminine, against all logical reason!

Parents should give great consideration to the pros and cons of educating their children abroad. It is true that the younger they start, the easier they will find it - and the goal of becoming a balanced bi-lingual will be easier to reach. It is very difficult indeed for a child to start class in secondary school without any language skills. Parents who enroll secondary school children must be prepared to give enormous encouragement and frequently some extra tuition.

Asking over 12 year-olds to take on two * new languages overnight is a major task, and a major expectation on behalf of the parent. State education in the Balearic Islands is bi-lingual - Castellano and Catalan.

Children, however bright, are normally enrolled in a class below their own level. This is in order that they have a first year in school in which to become familiar with the language. Repeating a year in Spain is very common, has no adverse social stigma, and gives a student who is slightly behind an opportunity to consolidate and then move forward.

The State has a generous system of support teaching for children with learning difficulties and non-Spanish speaking students are usually given extra tuition within their school timetable. If you think your child has a learning difficulty (other than lack of basic language skills) this should be discussed with the school as it is known to be very much more difficult for the teaching staff to identify and diagnose problems in tri-lingual families.

Children who have completed their secondary education (equivalent of 4 ESO /O levels) but lack language skills, rarely join a Bachillerato course, as they would never be able to keep up. Parents of teenagers wishing to continue with further education (at 16+) should consider remaining in their country of origin.

As parents, we are generally impressed by our children's skills, and horrified that we cannot keep up in the language stakes: at this stage we are often misled into thinking that everything is plain sailing for the children and that we can no longer help them with their school work. This is the dangerous stage, when too many parents divorce themselves from their children's education, don't discuss school work with the teachers, don't go to PTA meetings and generally leave the children to sort it out for themselves.

This could be the dangerous moment, when a parent could evaluate whether he or she is producing a Balanced bi/tri- lingual or and Illiterate multi- lingual.

A balanced bi/tri-lingual is a person who has academic language proficiency; this stage can take as long as five to seven years to attain and demands the vocabulary and concepts to study subjects in another language. However, basic communication skills can be picked up in a relatively short period, but being able to communicate in the playground or street in a multitude of languages does not necessarily mean that a child is fluent enough to be able to use/ study correctly in any of these many tongues.

It is normal that children who use a new language at school choose to speak it with friends and siblings. Parents might feel excluded but should not be alarmed. Keeping the mother tongue alive at home is all- important (and no child wants to be spoken to by a parent who make embarrassing grammatical errors). Research has shown that progress in the new language is always helped by development of the first.

The experts never fail to recommend that children should continue to receive tuition in their mother tongue, as perfecting their mother tongue will help their new language skills to develop and is the only way to tackle the problem of written presentation.

After all, it's a pity when one's 23 year old labels a buffet party dish' Sparagus Rolls'!

Correct at time of first publishing.Reproduced with kind permission from Deborah Hellyer & Roqueta.