Nannies and daycare that speak the community language

She is hearing whoever is with her, in the language that adult speaks, and the app can show you the count. The audit adds up each caregiver's weekly hours with your child and the language used, then compares the heritage-language total with the child's waking hours. It counts hours, not people. It is not a verdict on a nanny, a daycare or a parent, and a low number is information, not blame. The sources read for this site do not test how a caregiver's language affects a child, so the practical ideas below are marked as untested.

Count real hours, not the plan

King and Mackey, in The Bilingual Edge, give an example. A father who thought he was doing his part had only 3 to 4 hours a week alone with his child, under 5% of waking hours, and the authors present that as fully explaining why the child was not speaking his language. The point is that a plan and a real week can differ. Nobody in the example did anything wrong. The audit applies the same idea to every adult in the week.

For waking hours the audit uses the app's own working estimates, 11 to 13.5 hours a day depending on age. They have no cited source (UNVERIFIED). For a 3-year-old the estimate is 11.5 hours a day, which is 80.5 hours a week.

How the audit counts each caregiver

• A caregiver who speaks only the heritage language counts in full.
• A caregiver who code-switches, logged as mixed, counts at half weight.
• A caregiver who speaks only the community language counts as zero for the heritage language.

The zero describes the hours, not the care. A nanny or daycare teacher who speaks the community language adds nothing to the heritage-language count, and the audit says nothing else about her. The half weight is the app's choice, made because counting a mixed caregiver as full or as zero would misrepresent the home. No source read for this site measures it (UNVERIFIED). Log what you hear, not what would raise the number.

The audit adds the hours you type for each person and does not adjust them. It has no clock times, so it cannot tell whether two adults were with the child at the same time. It can only warn you when the total is more than the child's waking hours for the week. Log each hour once.

An example week

ILLUSTRATION: invented hours, run through the real audit code for a 3-year-old. The mother speaks only the heritage language for 30 hours a week, the father speaks only the community language for 15 hours, and a nanny speaks only the community language for 30 hours. The audit adds 75 hours and counts 30 as heritage, which is 37% of 80.5 waking hours.

That is above the app's rough 20% line, 16.1 hours a week. The line comes from one study as King and Mackey report it (Pearson and others, 1997), and it is CONTESTED. It is below 80%, 64.4 hours a week, the early-years target King and Mackey recommend because the majority language seeps in from everywhere else. Both are rough lines for thinking, not a pass mark. Because the heritage hours come from one caregiver, community-language hours outnumber them (45 against 30) and the share is under 80%, the audit shows a note that describes the hours only. It does not know who else speaks the heritage language at home. If the plan you saved says the parents have different first languages, it shows instead the note about children who understand a language but do not speak it, based on King and Mackey's case of Sarah. No overlap warning appears, because 75 hours is below the 80.5 waking hours.

Now log the same nanny as mixed, because she code-switches. The audit counts 45 hours as heritage, which is 56%. Nothing about the nanny changed. Only the way her hours are counted did, so the label should match what happens. The hours-only note no longer appears, because community-language hours (15) are now below heritage hours (45).

What you can do with the count

• Look for heritage-language time outside her hours: meals, bath, bedtime, weekends and calls with relatives. The People page can write a message asking a relative to read or sing with your child.
• If you want to, tell the caregiver what you are doing and ask whether she would use a few heritage words, such as greetings. It is a request, and she may decline.
• Run the audit again after you change the week, to see whether the number moved.

If a daycare or a doctor suggests dropping the heritage language, King and Mackey say no sound research supports that advice. They suggest asking what specifically concerns them and how they think it connects to having two languages. That is their guidance, not a ruling on any one daycare. For a concern about your child's speech, ask a speech-language professional.

What is still unknown

• How much a community-language caregiver's hours change a child's outcome in the heritage language. No source read for this site tests it. UNVERIFIED.
• Whether the half weight for a mixed caregiver matches what children receive. It is the app's choice.
• Whether the 20% and 80% lines suit your child. One is debated, and the other is the authors' recommendation.

In short: count the real week, log each adult as they speak, read the number as information, and look for other places the heritage language can fit.