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I need new ideas for French this year


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I am feeling really frustrated with our state of education right now and I could really use some advice. Sorry this is more rambly and ranty than necessary..

 

My goal has been to gradually begin teaching a greater portion of our homeschool day in French. I know that I have missed the boat on Math and I can't handle History, but I really wanted to do separate French Language Arts, map work, etc. For that to actually happen, my kids need to actually understand me when I speak French, right? yeah? I assumed that people were right when they said that just speaking French at my children, repeating, demonstrating, would actually have them understand the language. I should have spoken French to my oldest since birth but I didn't. Only my 4th child is being raised OPOL right now and he's under 2. The bigger kids understand a bit and use simple phrases with the baby like "assieds-toi", but goodess gracious my 8 year old.He basically copes by guessing every time I speak in French. He just isn't remembering much, he isn't happy listening to French unless we are watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer (which I totally caved on because at least it is in French.) and he mostly just wants to be done with everything so he can play outside or play Minecraft. 

 

 Because I have a toddler, a preschooler and a kindergartner I have limited one-on-one time with him and we really need to make it count. It seems like we constantly have 2 good months followed by 3 bad months. Maybe it isn't that much but the progress is nothing like I'd like it. I can't figure out how he will get from barely-A1 level to something resembling fluent in any definition of the word. 

 

I need something to supplement what I do with him that has more focused input than just watching cartoons. He has been watching cartoons in French since he was 3 an I will confidently say it has't paid off. I am honestly thinking about Rosetta Stone which seems ridiculous but at the same time like a halfway decent solution. Or possibly some text/audio heavy video game that he would have to figure out but I have no knowledge in this realm. I am planning on starting skype lessons with teachers from italki. That will be 30 minutes for each child 2x/week for my oldest two.

 

Up until now he has done parts of Tatou le Matou, and the beginning of Alex et Zoé 1. The former he seemed to have basically zero retention, the latter is much better but he doesn't have fine motor skills to do all the handwriting components. He only seems to tolerate a few minutes at a time and since we are on "inconsistent summer schedule" everything is falling apart. 

 

Any advice, resources, or suggestions are welcome. I hate the thought that he will grow up not speaking French while the rest of his siblings do just because I was such an inexperienced teacher and parent :(

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Is there any possible way you can spend an extended period of time with family in France/wherever-your're-from?  

 

Do you think he has good French understanding but just doesn't want to produce speech in French?  

 

If you are considering Rosetta Stone, also consider DuoLingo instead.  It's free, it has a "game-like" feel of gaining experience points, lingots, and being rewarded for streaks of days learning without interruption.  

 

Do you read to him in French?  

 

 

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Definitely try Duolingo. It will only get him to B1, so not fluent, but that's still a lot of progress for a free program.

 

I've seen Michel Thomas recommended a lot on language forums. His videos are on Amazon. People have reported success with it so long as you actually pause the videos at the beep to say the phrases aloud (might require supervision). He's not native so his accent is a little off, but they say it's still a good program.

 

I think reading to him in French, and then requiring him to read simple picture books back to you in French, is a great idea.

 

That said, I feel like truly imparting a bilingual education is much harder than it seems, and until he's old enough to have self-motivation, there might not much you can do. I remember reading a blog by a lady who spoke to her children exclusively in French, and yet it took moving to France for them to actually really pick it up. I think this is it: http://petitshomeschoolers.blogspot.com/

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Definitely try Duolingo. It will only get him to B1, so not fluent, but that's still a lot of progress for a free program.

 

I've seen Michel Thomas recommended a lot on language forums. His videos are on Amazon. People have reported success with it so long as you actually pause the videos at the beep to say the phrases aloud (might require supervision). He's not native so his accent is a little off, but they say it's still a good program.

 

I think reading to him in French, and then requiring him to read simple picture books back to you in French, is a great idea.

 

That said, I feel like truly imparting a bilingual education is much harder than it seems, and until he's old enough to have self-motivation, there might not much you can do. I remember reading a blog by a lady who spoke to her children exclusively in French, and yet it took moving to France for them to actually really pick it up. I think this is it: http://petitshomeschoolers.blogspot.com/

 

Oh interesting, I didn't know that was the story behind that blog!  Ha!

 

Running a bilingual homeschool IS hard work.  Really hard sometimes.  I think the best advice I got about it was from Cleo, who posts here occasionally, which is to NOT teach grammar in both, writing in both, etc, etc, etc.  If you teach LA in one, it will transfer easily to the other, so long as you are teaching the more complex of the two grammars.

 

This year, we did just that.  The only English LA we did was Apples and Pears Spelling, because my kids are just SO BAD at spelling in any language.  Actually, I should stop saying that.  My dd is spelling well for age and will soon pass up her brother.  We did grammar, spelling, conjugation, dictation all in French.  It has been a positive change.  

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Is there any possible way you can spend an extended period of time with family in France/wherever-your're-from? 

Not this year. I am trying to work out how to do that next year but it is no guarantee yet.

 

 

 

Do you think he has good French understanding but just doesn't want to produce speech in French?  

 

I thought so for a long time so perhaps his comprehension was better or perhaps I was overly optimistic (he used to translate jokes out of movies to talk about them when he was little so I thought we were on the right track, but lately it has become clear that he understands nearly nothing and just guesses based on the type of sentence. If I ask for a variation on what he expects he will typically respond to what he expected to hear, or just be confused by clarification. Simple stuff like "get the forks and put them on the table". If I switch it to spoons during dinner, or if I had asked for forks during breakfast he would be lost or guess something else we needed, knife, napkin, water cup. 

 

 

If you are considering Rosetta Stone, also consider DuoLingo instead.  It's free, it has a "game-like" feel of gaining experience points, lingots, and being rewarded for streaks of days learning without interruption. 

Do you read to him in French? 

 

 

I am not sure he can handle duolingo because he is not a strong reader yet, although he is improving so it is worth a try. I had been reading to him in French and requiring him to read me one short (really really short) book per day but that has fallen by the wayside this summer.

 

 

Definitely try Duolingo. It will only get him to B1, so not fluent, but that's still a lot of progress for a free program.

I've seen Michel Thomas recommended a lot on language forums. His videos are on Amazon. People have reported success with it so long as you actually pause the videos at the beep to say the phrases aloud (might require supervision). He's not native so his accent is a little off, but they say it's still a good program.

I think reading to him in French, and then requiring him to read simple picture books back to you in French, is a great idea.

That said, I feel like truly imparting a bilingual education is much harder than it seems, and until he's old enough to have self-motivation, there might not much you can do. I remember reading a blog by a lady who spoke to her children exclusively in French, and yet it took moving to France for them to actually really pick it up. I think this is it: http://petitshomeschoolers.blogspot.com/

 

'>http://petitshomeschoolers.blogspot.com/

 

 

 

In the sense of balanced bilingual, yes I don't expect to be able to do that. On paper, my goal is to get him to a balanced B2 by the time he is ready for college so he could go to a French speaking university if he wanted to. I still have plenty of time to work with that but in my heart I want to do better, sooner.

I think Paul Noble is supposed to be like Michael Thomas without the accent. I could try that I suppose.

I had forgotten about the petitshomeschoolers blog. Thank you for the reminder.

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Hmm.  OP, I hope you find some good options to help!  I'm a bit out of ideas.  I do have one child "rejecting" a language (French, which is the majority language where we live) and it is hard, but she is making slow and steady progress and doesn't have a comprehension problem.  

 

Anyway, I want to offer you encouragement and say "Keep trying!"

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We're doing only somewhat bilingual with Dutch, but I'll share what we've done. I realized last year that I just needed to teach Dutch as a 2nd language. Living in America, there was just too much of an uphill battle to have Dutch acquisition be "natural." Plus DH was really bad at consistently talking in Dutch with him. So I put him on Duolingo and assigned 30xp a day. There were bits of other Dutch work in there, but it was mostly Duolingo. Now, after a year, his Dutch is shaping up enough that we can do simple Dutch books with him with only short pauses for new vocab. We're currently reading a preschool-level Dutch book about animals, and also a math workbook (so he has math vocab if he enters Dutch school). Even though it felt like a defeat to start Dutch like it was a foreign language (he had been bilingual as a toddler) he needed the solid base before he could really take advantage of having a native speaker in the house.

 

Since your'e there to offer additional vocab and speaking practice, I would suggest adding a grammar-heavy French as a 2nd language program to your schoolwork as a "subject" and do your own natural extension of it in your daily routine.

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Do you know www.nico.fr ?

The educational game is totally in french :)

 

 

 

 

Thank you for the suggestions.

I am not sure if this is the link you meant? I get redirected to a dating site :lol: I am going to pick up a mots contes for this year.

 

We're doing only somewhat bilingual with Dutch, but I'll share what we've done. I realized last year that I just needed to teach Dutch as a 2nd language. Living in America, there was just too much of an uphill battle to have Dutch acquisition be "natural." Plus DH was really bad at consistently talking in Dutch with him. So I put him on Duolingo and assigned 30xp a day. There were bits of other Dutch work in there, but it was mostly Duolingo. Now, after a year, his Dutch is shaping up enough that we can do simple Dutch books with him with only short pauses for new vocab. We're currently reading a preschool-level Dutch book about animals, and also a math workbook (so he has math vocab if he enters Dutch school). Even though it felt like a defeat to start Dutch like it was a foreign language (he had been bilingual as a toddler) he needed the solid base before he could really take advantage of having a native speaker in the house.

 

Since your'e there to offer additional vocab and speaking practice, I would suggest adding a grammar-heavy French as a 2nd language program to your schoolwork as a "subject" and do your own natural extension of it in your daily routine.

What age is your child? I guess I can try my son on Duolingo but I just don't know that he can handle reading and translating. He can barely read accurately in English. :) We have Alex et Zoé going which is French as a second language (FLE) program but I think I hit the same problem - he wasn't reading last year in any language but he is really visual so he lacked the reinforcement the program had built in when he really needed it. I am going to try again this year and hope to complete level 1 and 2 in one year (it is designed that way so it is reasonable)

 

Now that I have calmed down a little I have been able to make a new plan. I also remembered that last summer I had this same freak out and told the kids wet were going for full immersion and I was going to stop speaking English during the day. My son at that point had complete meltdowns and and with true fear in his voice told me he'd never be able to talk to me again. So this summer I said we were going to have French only during the day and his freak out only lasted about three minutes where he said he was going to make his brother and sister translate everything he needs to me, and then he decided it would be fine as long as he can watch Buffy and the Avatar cartoon during the school day. So that's a HUGE change that I will count as a very small victory. I am going to make a commitment to at least 4 hours a day that are entirely and uncompromisingly in French, even if that has to start off very tv heavy. I think my biggest failing this past year was using English with him when things were important and he got the idea (rightly so) that if it was important enough I'd use English. He didn't have any great need to understand the French.

 

(Posing from my phone, sorry for any oddities)

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  • 4 weeks later...

I'm raising a trilingual, it was a challenge at first, now he is 9 and fluent, so don't give up!  You can do it.   Speak to your kids in French only, just like you said, but don't limit yourself to few hours, jump head first and do it all day long.  We did it and we are happy now.  

 

We also expect my son to reply in the language we spoke to him, if he doesn't, we don't understand him, period.  He is allow to draw, describe, or get a diccionary, but we don't bend that rule because It works great around his "wants" and you can see results fast.   You may have to endure a week of meltdowns, but if you are consistent, they will respond and you will see amazing progress.

 

Don't forget to play music, funny lyrics are a plus ;)

Good luck!

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