Once upon a time, before endless child producing, I was a French Teacher. I love French and I love France. In fact, if I could have convinced my husband, we would have moved there a few years ago. He wasn’t convinced and so it wasn’t to be. Now we are very settled, the children are very settled and so now my only hope will be to retire there if we have any money left after sending four children to university.
I do still do a bit of French teaching to fund my existence as an S.A.H.M. I work as a French tutor, which can involve teaching any level to a real mixture of ages; the youngest I’ve taught was seven and the oldest eighty! I quite enjoy being a tutor as one to one sessions allow you to build up good relationships and in some cases; great, friendships without the pressure you face in a classroom.
Recently, I have seen an increase in requests for tuition for primary school aged children. There are organisations such as La Jolie Ronde and Le Club Français who offer classes in and out of schools for little ones and from what I have heard and seen, they are great, offering fun-packed lessons in small groups where the children learn the language through games, songs and interactive activities.
People often ask me about my own children. I have always encouraged a positive attitude towards languages and tried to show them from an early age why we learn other languages. My eldest son is now in his GCSE year, he is doing Spanish rather than French. He had a dreadful French teacher at a rather crucial point in his development and although I tried really hard to rebuild his confidence and interest in the subject, he was also at the age where he did the opposite to what I told him, so he dropped French at the end of Year 9. On the plus side, he loves Spanish and will probably go on to do it at A Level, so I am happy that he has chosen to do one language.
Although I am a confident French speaker, I was never confident enough to bring my children up bilingual. I think that that is really hard to do if you’re not a native speaker. So what I try to do is drip feed a bit of French into their lives on a bit of an ad-hoc basis. I think that these early years are the best time for children to learn a new language. At this age, they are like sponges and they don’t have any inhibitions, unlike the teenage years which can have a really adverse effect on language learning.
As a teacher, if I had a pound for the number of times a parent would sit down at a parent’s evening and make comments like;” I hated French at school” or “I wasn’t any good at French at school”, I would be a very rich woman. The thing that frustrated me more was that often this negativity is passed on to the children and then it makes it even harder to make them see the point. The title of this post is yet another comment that came out of the mouths of many teenagers that I taught over the years. “I don’t do French, miss!” My teenage son said it once and once only.
For me this is not just about learning French or any language for that matter, it runs a lot deeper than just the language. It is about making children, even from a young age, aware of the world, of other cultures and of different people. My children love speaking a bit of French but they also love France and some of its customs. They know where France is on the map, how you get there, what you would eat and how some things are different to the way we do things here.
I don’t ram it constantly down their throats. I literally do a bit every now and then. They also learn French in school, which helps. We sometimes spend five minutes learning some new vocabulary, sometimes a game, sometimes we will look at something online or we will sing a song. The Internet has given us lots of resources to tap into as parents and even if you are not confident yourself, there are always web sites that can help and a variety of picture books.
I would be really interested to know what other parents think about this as it is something I feel quite strongly about and I am thinking about starting a blog giving people ideas to teach a bit of French to little ones. And to those who say “I don’t do French!” I say, well you do now!
Hi Nikki!
this is Núria from Barcelona, from The twin invasion (http://thetwininvasion.blogspot.com).
I find your post really, really interesting. There’s many points to talk about… now I have to leave, but I promise to come back later on to comment it properly… I’d love to share some opinions with you… and other parents as well, of course!!!
Núria
Oh I my call on you if we get stuck again then lol.
My 8 year old has just started learning French (for free too) at an after school club. I’ve taken him to Disneyland Paris twice. Mine and my husband’s French is very limited and I think I’ve passed onto my son how important it is to learn. Anyhow they started with asking what they knew about France and I was very impressed by all the things he remembered from his trip. He also comes home full of enthusisasm (I can’t spell tonight!) and starts teaching his 2 brothers (aged 4 and 2) what he has just learnt 🙂
Oh excellent post! I talk quite often with my children about other languages and cultures. My eldest is really interested in finding out about that sort of thing. I was good at, and really enjoyed, Spanish when I was at school. I’ve been thinking that I’ll pick it back up and teach bits to my children as well. My 2-year-old knows her body parts in both Spanish and English and uses the interchangeably, which makes me really proud. I would like to teach them more. I think it’s really important for children to learn how things are for other people around the world, different languages, customs etc.
When I was small my father was learning to speak Italian and he taught me too along the way, and we used to say goodnight in many different languages. I really enjoyed that as a child and have really fond memories of it now, so I hope I can do something similar with my own children.
I think your idea of doing a blog would be really good! I think a lot of parents might be interested in teaching bits to their children (as well as learning some themselves) but learning/teaching a language can be a bit daunting just on your own without some sort of guidance or tutoring, so a blog like that would be a really helpful thing, I think.
Good Post!
I personally love languages and have a good working knowledge of French, German and Italian, with a sprinkling of Spanish.
I don’t see why, when I holiday abroad, I should not be able to communicate (albeit fairly basically) in the national language when ordering food for example. If nothing else, I think it common courtesy to at elast say please and thank you in the native tongue!
I for one will be championing foreign languages with our LO. Not least of all because mummy isn’t the best at languages and we can communicate in secret 🙂
Bonjour! Great post! I was brought up in Spain and Mexico so at one point in my life I was completely fluent in Spanish. Without practising though I’ve forgotten most of it which really frustrates me as I think any second language (or more) is really beneficial. However, the little bits I can remember, I teach to Wee Z and Miss C. If they choose to continue it as they get older then that’s up to them but I really want to give them a head start in life…if they are willing to listen!
My 4 year old LOVES languages and I so wish I was more able to spend time with her doing so. We try very hard to use the tiny bit of French, German & Spanish, in keeping her interested. She is a very bright girl and soaks up all the information you can give her, no matter what the language.
I think its a wonderful thing to be able to offer your children if you can, along with the love of books too.
My 12 year old is now learning Latin, and is surprising himself with just how well he is doing.