When we travel abroad with children, we seem to have the most problems with the language. It is fascinating to observe how the little ones, when they play with other children, they don't understand languages, and they don't care if their new playmates speak English, Chinese or Arabic.
A few days ago we enjoyed a children's playground in London, and at first my daughters played alone, but soon they wanted to join a collective game in a kind of swing with the shape of an inclined wheel in which several children could fit.
There, the children get on, either the smallest (or prudent), well standing, balancing the older (or the most daring). They had to take turns to move the wheel, and there my two daughters got together with very few notions of English and several English children with, I imagine, null notions of Castilian.
It was great to see how the children developed, trying to share the game despite not understanding. Signs and gestures took a prominent place in communication between children. When a new child was added speaking to my daughters in English, another of the previous ones commented "They don't speak English".
AdvertisingWhen we have been to other unknown parks where the rest of the children spoke Spanish, they really have the facility to make new "friends" and have a good time playing with them. But of course, language barriers could perhaps be great in the case of being abroad. And we saw that it didn't matter.
It is clear that they were not going to make a symbolic or more elaborate game, but in that great wheel they did not matter more than minimum standards, and the two girls who could be out of context were integrated almost immediately.
Of course, although playing children do not understand languages and there they had a good time enjoying that peculiar swing, we did have to teach our daughters a basic notion in that context, an English word: "Stop". And sometimes the wheel accelerated more than they could bear ... And in the end, of course, "Bye! See you soon!".
