Public Tunisian school for non natives

Last activity 12 September 2016 by cck79

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UmmraniaMember26 August 2016 07:27:42

Hello everyone,

My husband is Tunisian, I am American but we have lived together our entire marriage in Germany. Our 4 children speak English/German and very little Tunisian Arabic. We are considering moving to Tunis but have some questions about schooling. At the moment we are considering the KheirEddine school, however our oldest would be too old by the time we move. Theoretically we could afford to send her to one of the private English schools but we really want the children to quickly learn the native language and it of course would be a huge financial relief if the could go to the public school. Does anyone have any experience with the public school system in dealing with non native speakers? Do they offer special classes to help the children learn? Does anyone have a guess at how long it would take them to catch up? Any insights would be appreciated. (this year they will be coming in 7th, 5th, and 4th grades.....the last child is still at home)

Ali SomaliMember27 August 2016 11:57:06

Hi ummrania
it looks like little difficulty because all puplic school's system is arabic and french and the teachers translate all subjects into Tunisian arabic to their students.
since your children doesn't speak neither Arabic nor french is so complicated to catch up the public schools.
but if u like to do that in order to your children learn arabic you have support them home tutors, to give them exra
helpful classes at home

best wishes
Ali

cck79Active member12 September 2016 15:24:23

I think you would be putting your older child in a very difficult situation. The Tunisian school system can be good but it is old fashioned and the classes are very large so they would not have time or resources to give extra help to your children. If they spoke French this may be ok but if not how are they meant to understand what is going on? Perhaps the youngest will pick the languages up but Arabic is not an easy language to learn, added to this the spoken Arabic is a dialect and very different to the language they do their studying in.
Just my opinion.

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