The following piece was first published as blog of the month in December 2014 on Meertalig.nl, an initiative promoting language learning and bilingualism in the Netherlands. Meertalig also hosts the Dutch branch of Bilingualism Matters as part of the EU-funded AThEME project.

Sharon Unsworth is Associate Professor of Second Language Acquisition at Radboud University Nijmegen where she teaches linguistics and carries out research into the language development of bilingual children (see her website for more information). She is also a member of the editorial board at Meertalig.nl

My daughter started school about a month ago. She’s absolutely loving it and is already making friends with some of the other children in her class. So far, so good then. Whilst the usual sense of trepidation common to most new experiences might be waning, I must admit that there’s a part of the bilingual mum in me that can’t help worry about the effect attending (Dutch only) school might have on my daughter’s English. [Read more…]