Moving/living in different cities/countries in life

[shootingstar]

Moving around is tough on kids, no matter how resilient some kids are.

Badger: that situation of home-grown ESL would be obviously be in only a few places in Canada where there are alot of Chinese-speaking folks.

I suppose it's one "advantage" of growing up in other areas in North America where there are less same language-speaking folks, but still ESL support within the school system. Also depends on the home environment: my father taught himself English. He had no time to take classes with job and big family. He really did make sure we ramped up our language skills. And a big part of that for myself: is reading books that a child chooses, not the parent. There are several miracle stories within my extended family of children struggling to learn new language and put back 2 grades. Then eventually the children do make it and completed university. It requires vigilant, supportive parents as well as some good teachers.

Marnie: You are resilient. Engineering projects....isn't like being in the foreign/diplomatic service, where there are many planned social events in local/host country to involve the temporary employees and their spouses/families and jumpstart the acculturation process.

One U.K. engineer used to tell about his Hong Kong Chinese-born wife who got into cycling their 2 children to daycare in Vancouver during his 2 yr. work stint with us. I think it was a way for her to get out and explore. By the way, she didn't make hardly any local friendships even though Vancouver area has a huge population with shared/similar backgrounds. She hated Vancouver because of our fall-winter rains.