Hi all

Here goes - my first question, which doesn't seem to have been covered here yet.

I've made a start on teaching my almost 8 yr old French ready for the big move, but I'm not sure if I'm doing more harm than good, as he's trying to read French words as if they were English. (We're doing songs and games too, but he likes having something written as he's compiling a folder of work.)

Please can someone explain exactly HOW they'll teach him French once we arrive - assuming he's in a separate welcome class or has some group lessons, will that teacher only speak (basic mimed) French to them, so it's full immersion? Will he only be taught to understand and speak it first, then read and write later? Will he be taught to read in French by breaking down the phonic sounds, like he was in English (ie, c-a-t is cat)?

Hope someone's been through this with a similar age kid, and can help - I don't want to hardwire a load of wrong stuff in his head that his teacher'll have to undo!

Many thanks

kodokan

As with most languages, but especially French, the written language is very different from the spoken language.

Kids are like sponges, especially with languages. He'll be understanding and speaking French sooner than you think.

I would drop grammar and writing, he can learn that in School. Songs are good, they contain useful phrases and help retain vocabulary.

Teach him pieces of contextual French, for example when in the kitchen learn the names of objects in the kitchen.

Otherwise plunge him into the deep end when you get here and throw in some private lessons on top of that.

Within 6 months he'll be teaching you.

Unless you are a native French speaker, I would drop the project altogeather, as he will just pick up all your mistakes etc... Also kids don't seem to learn in that systematic way we adults do - they just seem to pick it up as they go along.

Once he is over here and he starts to spend several hours per day with other kids where the language of play is French he will pick it up very fast - within a few months he will have no problem following what is going on. There is no doubt that it will be difficult for the first month or two, put as long as he stick at it and you give him all the support he needs he will make it.

Best of luck,

Jim.

If they go to a local (state) school, they will be given lessons to catch up with the language anyway. When we put our 8 year old (now 10) into the local school in the village, they sourced a teacher and, instead of doing art, they took lessons to bring their French up to date.

We put our kids into the local system, from the International School, when they were 8,6 and 6. They are now all fluent and able to switch between English and Frnech with ease.

He'll pick up spoken French quickly in the playground - starting with the swear words.

The school President will, normally, request an English speaking French teacher. You will be amazed at just how fast your children will pick it up. My kids went from starting in the local school at the end of August to finishing their "extra French" lessons before easter.

Thanks, everyone - feeling a bit more reassured now that whatever I do this end will at most advance the whole learning French process by only a week or two. Pressure's off now, I can stop compiling lesson plans, and just stick on the occasional CD or video. (Although I have invented a fun game where I use cut out paper flies with pictures of things stuck on them, and when I say 'le chien', 'le sous-marin', etc, they have to run and swat that fly with a plastic swatter. Seems very popular with the under 4-footers.)

And you're probably right about the swear words, although he currently leads a very sheltered life - it came up in conversation recently that I asked him if he knew any swear words, and after much giggling and not meeting my eye, he conceeded he knew 'bum'. Bless...

A friend who works at a local library says that each year they get a fresh crop of kids, complete with their new 'English-Foreign' dictionaries, trying to bypass the library's 'nanny' computer system by Googling foreign words for all those English ones the system's blocking. Gotta admire the problem solving skills, though...

Cheers, everybody.

kodokan