The amount of English your child gets at a bilingual preschool depends on how many hours an English-speaking adult spends with the group, and whether that adult is there for real conversation and routines, not just a short lesson. In Saigon this ranges from under an hour a day to most of the active day. Both ends call themselves bilingual. The only way to know is to count.
Counting matters because research on children learning two languages points the same way: what children hear, how often and from whom, shapes what they understand and say in each language. This guide explains how to turn a school’s timetable into a rough weekly figure, what kind of exposure helps most at this age, what realistic progress looks like, and which questions bring out the real picture.
Why the hours matter more than the label
Children learning two languages from early on build vocabulary in each language roughly in proportion to how much they hear it. Studies by Erika Hoff and colleagues, published in the Journal of Child Language in 2012, found that bilingual toddlers’ vocabulary in each language reflected their relative exposure, while their total vocabulary across both languages was comparable to that of children learning one. Earlier work by Barbara Pearson and colleagues in Miami in the 1990s pointed the same way. Neither finding says bilingual children fall behind; they say each language grows with use.
For a preschool choice this has a plain implication. A school where English is heard for forty minutes a day will give your child some songs, colours and greetings, which is pleasant but limited. A school where an English-speaking adult is present for meals, play, outdoor time and stories will give your child the kind of everyday language that builds real understanding. Both are legitimate offers. They are simply not the same thing, and the label bilingual covers both.
The same logic runs in reverse for Vietnamese. An expat child at a school where Vietnamese is used mostly by the homeroom teacher for instructions, while classmates chat in English, will understand classroom routines in Vietnamese but may say little. A child whose friends play in Vietnamese will pick up far more. Counting both languages, not just the one you are paying attention to, gives the full picture.
Turning a timetable into a weekly figure
Ask the school for the daily schedule of your child’s age group and which adult is in the room at each point. Then work through it in five steps. The aim is a rough number, not precision.
- Mark every block when an adult who speaks English with the children is present in the room, including meals, toileting and transitions, not just lessons.
- Remove nap time. Children asleep for two hours are not hearing much of anything, whichever language the adult speaks.
- Separate full presence from shared time. If the English speaker is with the group but splits time between two classes, count half.
- Multiply the daily total by the number of days your child will attend each week.
- Do the same for Vietnamese, then compare the two figures with the language your child hears at home.
As an example with invented figures: if an English-speaking co-teacher is in the room from 08:30 to 11:00 and again from 14:30 to 16:00, that is four hours a day of active time, or around twenty hours over a five-day week. A school with a forty-minute English session each morning gives a little over three hours a week. The difference is roughly sixfold, though both schools may describe themselves the same way.
Not all exposure is equal
Hours are the first filter, but the kind of language in those hours matters too. Young children learn most from conversation with an attentive adult about something they are doing together: what is in the sand, why the ice is melting, who wants more rice. They learn less from listening passively to a group song or watching a screen. Research on early language more broadly, from studies of parent–child conversation to work on shared book reading, consistently points to back-and-forth talk as the most powerful ingredient.
This is why a co-teacher who is present for routines often matters more than one who teaches a planned lesson. Routines repeat every day, they carry obvious meaning, and children want to communicate during them: to ask for help with a shoe, to say they are full, to complain that a friend took their spade. Ask the school what the English-speaking adult does during lunch, toileting and outdoor play. If the answer is that they eat with the children, help with shoes and join the games, your child is getting rich exposure. If the answer is that they take a break, the hours you counted are thinner than they look.
What realistic progress looks like
Many children who start a new language at preschool go through a quiet stage first. Patton Tabors, in her study of young second-language learners in an English-speaking preschool, described children who kept using their home language for a while, then fell silent in the new language, watching and listening, before beginning to use single words and set phrases. This stage can last weeks or months, and it is normal. A quiet child is often absorbing a great deal.
After that, children typically use memorised chunks such as “my turn” or “I want water,” then begin to build their own sentences, with mistakes that show they are working out the rules. Understanding runs well ahead of speaking throughout. Children also mix languages, using a word from one inside a sentence in the other, which is a normal feature of bilingual development rather than confusion. Be cautious about schools that promise fluency by a certain age. Progress depends on exposure, personality, the home languages and the child’s own pace, and good schools describe it in ranges.
Age plays a part as well. A two-year-old is still building the foundations of language in general, so progress in any one language looks gradual and mostly appears as understanding. A four- or five-year-old already has a strong first language to lean on and may pick up phrases faster, while also noticing more that they sound different from friends. Neither is better placed; they simply show progress differently, and teachers should describe it with that in mind.
The other language: Vietnamese and home languages
Counting English hours naturally leads to the question of what happens to the other languages. For a Vietnamese family, a school with a lot of English still usually provides plenty of Vietnamese through the homeroom teacher, classmates and the national programme. For an expat family whose home language is English, the same school may be the child’s main source of Vietnamese, which is a real opportunity if the family is staying for some years.
Families with a third language at home, such as Korean, Japanese or French, face a particular balance. The preschool will usually strengthen Vietnamese and English, and the home language will depend almost entirely on the family. That is not a reason to avoid a bilingual school, but it is worth planning for; the site’s section on multilingual families covers that in more depth. For choosing a school, the point is simply to count all the languages your child will meet in a week, at school and at home, and check that the balance matches what you hope for.
A practical way to do this is to draw a simple week on paper with three columns, school, home and other, and estimate the waking hours your child spends in each language. Many families are surprised by the result: a child at a strongly English school with an English-speaking nanny at home may hear Vietnamese only from classmates, while a child with Vietnamese grandparents nearby may hear far more Vietnamese than the school timetable alone suggests.
Hours across the year, not only across the week
A weekly figure is a good start, but exposure also varies across the year. Many schools in Saigon close for a week or more around Tet, the Lunar New Year, and have shorter breaks at other public holidays. Some run a summer programme with a different timetable or different teachers. Foreign staff often take longer holidays to travel home, and the co-teacher your child sees in October may be replaced by a substitute in July. Each of these can change how much English your child actually hears.
Ask how English provision changes during holidays and the summer term, who covers when the English-speaking teacher is away, and whether the school has had gaps in the past year when a foreign teacher left and was not replaced for some weeks. A school that plans cover carefully, perhaps with a second bilingual teacher who already knows the children, keeps exposure steady. A school where English simply stops when one person is away gives a thinner offer than its timetable suggests. Multiply your weekly figure by the number of weeks the school says English runs at full strength, and you have an honest annual estimate to compare across your shortlist.
The Ministry’s framework for English in kindergarten
Vietnam’s Ministry of Education and Training has issued a programme for introducing English to kindergarten-aged children, through Circular 50/2020/TT-BGDDT. It sets out goals and content for helping children aged roughly three to six become familiar with English through play, songs, stories and simple communication, and it is intended to be offered where conditions allow and families wish, rather than required. Many Vietnamese and bilingual schools refer to this framework when they describe their English strand.
Knowing that the framework exists helps you read what a school offers. A school that follows it closely for a set number of sessions a week is offering a structured introduction to English, which suits families who want their child to meet English gently alongside a Vietnamese day. A school with an English-speaking co-teacher present for much of the day goes well beyond an introduction. Neither is wrong. Asking whether a school’s English strand is based on this programme, on a foreign framework or on its own curriculum gives you a quick sense of which kind of offer you are looking at.
Questions that bring out the real picture
These questions turn a general claim into numbers and examples. Ask them about your child’s age group, since English provision often differs between toddler and kindergarten classes.
- What is the daily schedule for this age group, and which adult is in the room at each point?
- How many hours a week does the English-speaking adult spend with this group, excluding nap time?
- Does that adult stay for meals, toileting and outdoor play, or leave after planned activities?
- Is the English-speaking teacher shared with another class, and if so, how is time divided?
- What happens when a child answers in Vietnamese, English or a third language?
- How do you describe children’s progress in each language to parents, and how often?
- What do children in this group usually understand and say after one year, as a range rather than a promise?
Write the weekly hours next to each school on your shortlist. It is the single most useful number for comparing bilingual offers, and it is one that schools can usually give you if asked directly.
Câu hỏi thường gặp
Is one hour of English a day enough for a preschool child to become bilingual?
One hour of good-quality interaction a day can build familiarity and some understanding, especially if supported at home. It is unlikely on its own to produce confident everyday use. Children who become comfortable in a language usually hear it for many hours a week in real conversation, from school, home or both.
Will a lot of English at preschool slow down my child’s Vietnamese?
In a bilingual school, children usually still hear plenty of Vietnamese from teachers and classmates. Vocabulary in each language reflects exposure, so a child may know some words only in one language for a while. Overall language development is not harmed by learning two languages; it is shaped by how much rich conversation the child experiences.
My child says nothing in English after two months. Should I worry?
A quiet period is common and normal for young children starting a new language. Many listen and understand for weeks or months before speaking. Ask the teacher whether your child follows instructions and joins in, which shows understanding. If you have broader concerns about speech in any language, talk with a paediatrician.
Does it matter whether the English teacher is a native speaker?
Less than parents often think. What helps young children most is a lot of warm, natural conversation. A fluent bilingual teacher who talks with children all day may provide more useful language than a native speaker who visits briefly. Ask about hours and the kind of interaction, not only nationality.
Can screen time or apps replace English hours at school?
Research on young children consistently finds that they learn language best through live interaction with responsive people. Videos and apps can add songs and words, but they do not replace conversation. If a school relies on screens for its English strand, count those minutes separately from time with a teacher.
Should I choose a school with more English or more Vietnamese?
Start from your family’s plans and home languages. If you are staying long term and your child needs Vietnamese, a stronger Vietnamese base matters. If you may move to an English-medium school abroad, more English helps. Many families choose a balanced bilingual school to keep both paths open.