Hi all

I'm having a little 'fret' and hope you can help.

My son's 8 and has been in local French-speaking school since the start of April. He's very happy there and enjoys going off to school each day, but I'm a little worried that the language isn't coming naturally to him.

He seems to have picked up a reasonable amount of topic-based vocab. But he hasn't the faintest idea how to form any basic sentences - 'I like...', 'I want...', 'I can...', that sort of thing. I was expecting by now that he'd at least be muttering some gramatically incorrect stuff - 'Me want football play' and so on. At the moment, he relies on the odd word - 'Look!' and 'Stop!' are his usuals - and pointing a lot. I think he understands at least some of what's said, but he just doesn't speak.

So please can you tell me what stages your kids went through when learning languages? Is it likely that he'll go from a bare handful of single words to fluent communication one day?

I'm not too concerned about the timescale - I know every kid's different, and I'm not expecting fluency any time soon. But I'd like to be reassured he's making some progress and passing through the normal learning stages, whatever they are!

(Background: his teacher has good English and is certainly translating some of the lessons/ instructions to him in English. Outside of school, he plays mostly with English speakers; his sister or neighbourhood kids. There's one French-speaking kid who comes over occasionally, but she's a 6 yr old girl so not his ideal playmate. I've offered to have boys from his class over to play, but he doesn't really want to and I don't know any of their parents to try and arrange it that way. I speak low-intermediate French, certainly enough for chatting with visiting kids, so could referee to a degree.)

Any reassuring stories or advice, please..?

kodokan

I suppose my question is... how is he doing in school? What does his teacher say?

My daughter never would and still won't speak to me in German, all I get is mumbling. Yet, all my worrying (after her taking it for several years) are for not... she has just been promoted to the "advanced/fluent" class.

If his teacher feels he is doing fine in class, then maybe he is!

Hi Kodokan
I am not going to be on any help but am also interested in others responses to this. If kids are at Swiss schools (my son is younger than yours at 4 and attends a play group 3 x 3 hours pw), what is a reasonable expectation of what and how they learn?
I guess mine is quite different because at this age he isn't trying to read and write do maths etc it is just a play group. But I would be very interest to hear how other peoples children have adapted and learned?

Please don't worry, I had the same worries with my Son who would not speak French and I thought he was not learning ,but in fact he was. Everything was going in and I remember going to a class activity and it soon became apparent that he understood everything that was said to him but just did not respond. Everything is still quite new for your son so he probably is quite shy at responding.
Also I think boys are a little less quick than girls

I wouldn't stress - language learning is a wonderful gift and I don't think there's a magic solution other than immersion - the great thing is that your child is very likely to end up more fluent than you are, in a much shorter space of time...

Also, they are less likely to talk to you and feel comfortable in a language other than their 'mother tongue' and even less so if 'put on the spot'. Rather, we talk spontaneously, without thinking about it, in the right context to suit the situation, and certainly speaking comes a lot later than hearing and understanding (and hearing and understanding also is much easier with the help of body language and context)...

You have a little star! he is adjusting to his environment, and its not always that easy, so..give him time.
My story for you: I speak Afrikaans (from South Africa) to my kids, we speak English at home when my hubby is home, but besides that, I am the whole day with the kids, they have not been in creche's or anyone's care. My daughter (now 5 1/2) has only recently (3 months?) started speaking Afrikaans back to me, (even though I have always spoken Afrikaans to them), she is not 100% fluent in Afrikaans, (but 100% fluent in English). Then, my son (4yrs) ONLY speaks and replies back in English. But, they understand Afrikaans 100%.
Give you son time, like you say, he understands French maybe much more than what he is vocal in it. he will speak when he needs to , and yip...ask the teachers how he is doing, and if they have any worries, its better to adress it now. Settle your worry by tackling the issue, speak to the teachers.

Funny story: I had a friend, her daughter was 4, never uttered a word, used signs - even though they had her tested etc. there was nothing wrong with her. The end result was that they had to take her out of her 'safe' environment (staying at home whole day with mommy who understand all the signs), and the moment when they put her into a creche/daycare, she HAD to speak, and yeh...now she does not stop!

I am doing what I can so that my bilingual (German and English) kids (3 and 5) skip the Swiss German stage ... nothing else matters.

Thanks all, I know it's very early days, and the main thing is that he's adjusted really well to the move and is happy.

I'm just a bit concerned because he has a piece of homework to do this weekend all about conjugating common verbs: 'I have, you are...' that sort of thing. Obviously he can't do it alone and I'm helping, but it turns out he hasn't the faintest idea of any of the personal pronouns. Is it honestly OK to be 6 months in and not be able to work out what 'je' and 'tu' mean in a very basic contextual sentence?

I've just asked him what he does in his special French lessons (the school provides 3-4 a week); from what he says these are just giving him themed vocab, taught through Snap or word searches - he knows the words but still can't actually use any them in any way, not even to help him work out what a sentence is saying. (This is the first year that the French tutor has had English-speaking children (my son and more recently 2 American girls, one of whom is in a tutor group with him). She's mostly done Spanish/ Portuguese-speaking children, and at the parent conference last June she seemed slightly bemused at his lack of progress.)

Is this normal? I'm honestly not the helicopter parent type - he does no improving after-school activities! - but if it isn't, and we need to get some extra help, it would be great to know now. Otherwise we may find it's come too late for him to pass to the next school cycle - his previous teacher said this would be a great shame as he's scoring very well on his other subjects, and he'd be really upset about this.

Thanks, all.

kodokan

hi kodokan...
if you're worried, there may be a reason, trust your instincts...
my son joined swiss german kindergarten in august, we've been here since march, english is his second language, we speak afrikaans at home. so language is a HUGE issue to me, particularly because performance in primary school is crucial due to the way the school system works here and also because we can't help him...and of course, being a true SA male - he doesn't speak about things he does in any case, so i don't know what's cooking!!!
shamefully i can't offer you a solution, except also to talk to the teacher regularly and then follow up on the feedback. if you feel he has to play more in french, fetch the friends yourself.
i was cautioned not to make it too big a deal, because he could pickup that i'm worried. but on the other hand if you sit back and let the system take its course, he could be the loser and you know about it too late?!
wish i could be more helpful, but really, follow your instincts, you're his mom! you know best and have xray eyes and bionic ears and ESP in your heart...

Kodakan, I have a series of CD ROM's called "Lapin Malin" and can send you the one for the 6-7 year olds (it will still be good for your son).

My daughter really liked them and maybe he will too.

If you are interested, pm me.

Jennifer

Does your child got to a regular state school where he has lessons all day in French, then have this extra class or is he just in this special class all day?

Hi,

French-english bilingual here, who's also studied language development in kids :-)

6 months is not a lot of time, and learning a new language at 8 is more difficult than before 6 years old. Your son probably needs a little more time and more active learning (rather than passive listening).

Also, a teacher who's used to helping little spanish and portuguese children learn french isn't going to be much use with an english speaker. Spanish and portuguese are both latin languages, which is not at all the same as english. Would it be possible for you to get your son another tutor preferably english-french bilingual or just french? He needs to be drilled in the basic grammatical rules, preferably in a one to one situation.

Hi MiniMia - he's in the regular class for his age (3me), but goes out most days for 45 mins to have his French class whilst the others are doing gym or drawing.

Gazoline - thanks, that's pretty much the conclusion I've come to, that he's not just going to 'pick it up' like my 4 yr old is. He's started getting the same French homework as the others this term, so I know he's perfectly capable of more formal learning - I spent an hour this morning doing his 'conjugate avoir/etre/aller in the present tense in these sentences' homework with him! Again, last week's homework putting sentences into the plural was fine, even the bit about changing the article which of course doesn't happen in English.

His tutor is doing vocab word games, he's getting plenty of background listening - you're right, he needs one-to-one on grammar. He's in a fairly receptive stage of 'being taught by Mummy' at the moment - it goes in phases - so I'll have a think about what would be helpful to know. Any suggestions..?

I'm thinking along the lines of 'I can', 'I want', 'I have', 'I am' and their negative counterparts. And some useful school-type verbs - play, draw, write, read and so on.

If we do 5 mins a day drilling those into sentences and little dialogues, it should go a long way, do you think?

Thanks for the input, everyone, I'm slightly happier now I've identified a problem I can DO something about!

kodokan

If he's receptive to "learning from mummy", then, go ahead. He might learn well from a basic grammar book (there must be some for english speakers), with exercises, or just reading out loud some simple stories. That's how we learned when we were in primary school (je, tu, il, etc... over and over again). He needs basic grammar, starting with the 3 most important tenses (présent, imparfait, futur simple).

5 minutes seems a bit short but you know him better :-)

If your french is up to it, you can also maybe watch tv with him and ask him questions in french, or just talk french for half an hour.

Glad you feel better

Thanks, I'll try and find a basic grammar book - most of the ones I've seen are aimed at secondary school age as a minimum, but it could work if I sit alongside him and we talk it through. He's quite a 'technical' sort of boy, so he seems to quite like the concept of grammar as a toolkit that follows rules.

Worst case, I could always write one for him! I did a grammar crib for my husband yesterday to bring him up to speed on English grammar before he tackles French, so it might be quite fun to do a kid one in French too. (And I could give it to my husband, two-for-one deal.)

5 mins... well, I say '5' to him, but it's always more like 10-15... Little and often is a good system with him. I'd like him to work on speaking rather than writing at this early stage, so that'll make it quicker.

Thanks for the hint on verb tenses - I'd have gone with perfect rather than imperfect, but I can see your point and it'll be easier anyway as the endings match. Fortunately, he's already done verb tenses back in the UK, so at least he'll have the concept to work with.

Right, off to hunt around on Amazon. And I recall seeing some old-fashioned out of copyright grammars on Google books for teaching kids in the 18-1900s, which I may be able to adapt. Thanks very much, you've been a great help and very reassuring.

kodokan

Hi,

I am a teacher and have worked with bilingual kids for years. I want to reassure you that 6 months is a short amount of time to start communicating in another language. Generally children spent months having what we call a 'silent period' where they listen to the new language, absorb the vocabulary internally but are not able to speak. It sounds like your child is just beginning to start communicating in French and he should pick up from here. Once he does, you'll be amazed at how fast he can communicate with other French speakers.
Certainly the earlier a child is immersed in a foreign language, the easier it is for them to speak it. My 4 year old is completely bilingual as he has attended the local créche since he was 4 months old and we only speak English at home. It is more difficult for an 8 year old.
Arrange for a little bit of extra tuition for your son (again, it is probably better to have a French speaker to help him so that he picks up on accents, nuances etc).
If your child is achieving in other subjects and doesn't seem to be struggling (language aside of course!), he should be fine. Again I have seen cases where children have been immersed in French for a few years and still struggle to say 'Il neige' and I have seem the complete opposite where kids become fluent in another language within a year. All kids are different and bilingualism is not for everyone.
However, think positive, get some help and praise your son for what he can already do!

Some fun things for him would be (and the first three are obvious):

1. Television
2. Video Games in French
3. DVD's

You would have to keep command of the remote control for the above three, otherwise as soon as you leave the room you'll find the language miraculously changes.

4. Verb conjugating games in the car (I found it was a good place to learn); where you ask each other questions and whoever wins gets a sweety of something. The thing is for you to make errors and then the child gets super excited saying "you are WRONG, my point!" (my pre-teen still loves that one)
5. Constructing silly sentences games. It's a fun way to work in adjectives (that have to agree with the noun). Disgusting sentences work the best ().

Jennifer

You have boys, don't you...

Just tried to PM you, but your mailbox is full. I'll try again in a little while.

Thanks for the great ideas.

kodokan

Edit: message now been sent, thanks.

Ive been through the same experience with my son , in Holland. We came here without any language knowledge when he was 10 years old. The teachers let him just sit in the class to try and follow the lessons. It worked for him after one year he was speaking fluent Dutch, he had a few playmates , who only spoke Dutch to him , but he still brought them home and he went to there houses as well. Yes he fell behind his school work for a while , but soon caught up once he learned to speak the language. He learned the grammar later. All i can say is hang on in there, they learn at there own pace..
Good luck

Nah, I have a girl!
We now play the "Disgusting Sentence Game" with her pre-teen friends in English, as most are learning it as their third language... the girls love it as I've revamped it into talking about boys, zits/spots and braces. It's perhaps a little unorthodox but it works.

(btw, my mailbox has been emptied out a little)