Introductions...

[C_l_e_0..Q_c]

Now that this board's scope has been broadened, maybe we should do some introductions. It would allow us to know who teaches in a bilingual manner, and what languages that would be...

[C_l_e_0..Q_c]

And me first!

 

We're French Canadians. My kids have never been to school. Quebec is way behind the North American norms with regard to homeschooling. For example, French speaking universities will not even look at a homeschooling portfolio. They require a DEC (a 2year degree after high school). To get the DEC, you need to go to CEGEP, and those schools don't look at anyone without a high school degree. And to get a high school degree, you have to pass all the ministry of education exams, and be supervised by a high school, and you have to follow the provincial program to a T.

 

Not what we want to do.

 

Therefore, my kids will have to attend an English speaking university. They have a much more open mind. Thankfully, we realized that, when the kids were young, so we've been pushing English quite a bit. Now my son, at age 11, is doing Sonlight core 6 in English. He's also doing a play with English speaking kids. Next year, he'll most likely get Write At Home for his English composition classes. My daughter is doing the read-aloud part of Sonlight core 1+2. She's 8yo, but not really bilingual yet. She's definitely lacking in vocabulary, but she's not afraid to speak. It's just a question of patience at this point. Most of my kids' schooling is done in French, but we're using whatever homeschool ressource we happen to like. That usually means it's in English.

 

So there you have it.

Primary language: French

Secondary language: English

currently working on Spanish and Latin.

[Sarah CB]

I'm flailing right now. I am not fluent in another language, so I haven't implemented the level of bilingualism that I'd like to see here.

 

This is what we do so far:

 

Italian school - every Saturday the kids spend two hours at Italian with lovely Italian teachers. Dd has been going for six years. They start the kids in kindergarten and go up from there.

 

Latin - Dd is partway through Henle after doing LC 1 and 2. The boys have done Prima Latina but we're taking a year off from Latin and will start LC 1 in the fall.

 

Dd's Italian teacher said she sometimes uses her knowledge of French and Latin to figure out Italian :)

 

French - we have done some French at co-op (we have a Francophone friend who homeschools) and dd is currently working through The Easy French level 2A (grade 9). I was doing The Easy French Jr. with the boys, but I cut it out of this year because I was trying to simplify things and have a manageable school year. I'm ready to start thinking about French again.

 

We have a ton of resources, books, games, CDs, etc. to help with French. I want to take a French class - either at the cultural center or at the college. I'll be attending Marie Filion's workshop on creating an immersion environment at our convention in May and I'm reading a book on learning second languages now. This messageboard came at a good time. I'd like to get myself in gear and start implementing more French throughout the day over the next few months. I'll be interested in hearing how other people integrate a second language into their lives.

[naturalmom]

With my older two, their school is all English except for actually working on German. My goal is to get them through their current language program and then do a subject area in German, or topics in German.

 

I am using school immersion for my youngest. He's just in 1st grade, so we're using German 1. Klasse materials, improving reading, etc. My goal is to continue using German materials for all subjects but math.

 

We also work on English though, because by law English is to be the primary language of instruction. Right now, he's ahead in reading, so I feel like I have a couple of years before I have to rearrange things too much. The early grades don't require as much work in English, so I think if we're "done" with that aspect, we can do German the rest of the time!

[Sara R]

We are a former homeschooling family who is about to jump back into dual enrollment with my older child.

 

My oldest isn't learning any language. We're bringing her home for 1 1/2 hours per day to work on remediating learning disabilities.

 

My middle child is in Spanish immersion at school. I speak Spanish on an intermediate level. He has expressed interest in learning German as well, which I studied in college (a few classes short of a minor). He's a bright kid, and the non-Spanish parts of school go pretty slowly for him. Possibly next year I will do dual-enrollment with him as well, so he has time to learn some of these extras.

 

I haven't done any language activities with my youngest, other than a little Dora in Spanish. She looks like she will be quick to learn as well, so she might have time to do languages at home. She might go into the Spanish program at school when it begins in 2nd grade.

[Storm Bay]

I'm Karin, and I don't truly qualify, since I'm no longer bilingual, but I hang out on the high school board, too, and my dd starts that next year;). My dds are only learning German with Rosetta Stone, but they're going to start doing some other subjects in German. Probably easier than what they're doing in English, so that they can do math and learn German grammar. Also, I hope to have each one study their favourite subject in German as they are able. So my eldest will do some science in German (elementary at first, to couple with her high school English science.) My secret (well, secret from my parents as I'd never ask) hope is that someday my parents will offer to send us to Germany for a holiday for some immersion instead of a Club Med. Club Med is fun, but doesn't have the same educational impact anymore.

 

Someday I hope to get back to Germany for a refresher and for my dc to get some immersion there.

[Matryoshka]

Hi! It's great to see this board be expanded - Spanish is one of the languages we're doing, but only one of them. And hopefully it'll be more active here too! :001_smile:

 

I've got 3 dds, twins who are 10 and in 5th, and another who is 8 and in 2nd/3rd. My aim is to get them trilingual in German and Spanish (and English :tongue_smilie:), which I am. I started them really early listening to music in both languages, but focused first on German. When they were in preschool we attended two German playgroups - a large one in a nearby city, and a smaller one I started in our town. When they were in K, they started at the Saturday School, which has been great. We've taken one trip to Germany, and one of my dds may return there this spring and go to school for a month (which would be her first experience in "real" school).

 

I started them with a native tutor in Spanish with some friends, but as time went on I was getting more and more frustrated with the pace. She never gave any useful homework for them to practice what they learned in class, and other than getting a good accent and some basic vocabulary, I didn't see much. So this year, I took over. For the older two, I'm teaching them and a friend (that had been with the tutor as well) using Spanish the Easy Way, a series called Juegos y actividades en Español and some books from Hayes called A Trip to Mexico and A Trip to Spain. For my younger dd, I teach her and a couple of her friends using Español para chicos y grandes and some fairy tales. Both classes have been going very well - I assign plenty of homework to practice over the week, they're making steady progress, and I'm wondering what the heck I was spending all that money on a tutor for.

 

My older two also took an online Chinese class last summer. They loved it, and I'm trying to figure out how we could do it again this summer.

 

For extra exposure, I pretty much only let them watch videos in German or Spanish, except for the occasional science/history video. The older two are reading well enough in German now that I'm hoping to add some subject reading in next year. Spanish has a ways to go, but I'm hoping to get them in at least readers by next year.

 

Looking forward to sharing ideas and resources - I already discovered the Spanish curriculum I'm using with the younger kids and some great videos from reading this board - just love all the great ideas and energy here! :001_smile:

[fivetails]

We're not working with a second "language" in the speaking sense - but if there's room for a family who uses braille as a secondary form of communication, count us in. :) ....Our ten year old son is blind and is working on grade one level braille ("grade one" does not have anything to do with the school type of grades....there are two "grades" of braille - uncontracted and contracted... ( short explanation of braille and the two grades )...he will likely remain on the grade one braille level, due to other disabilities.

 

Naturally, we (his family) need to know braille in order to teach it to him.... we read braille with our eyes, not our fingertips as he does. This is actually harder - but we don't have (never developed) the sensitivity of the fingertips that he has....I've tried, but boy oh boy is it *ever* hard to tell what I'm feeling on the page! There are some letters that I recognize immediately due to their unique (to me - ie, they stand out) visual shape (like the letters G and L) on the page, but for others I have to actually consider the dots, what they are (ie: oh that's 1,3,6 - okay that's a U) and put the word together that way, or if I've gone and forgotten that 1,3,6 is in fact a U, I'll look at the rest of the word and put it together....In other words, braille was never meant to be read with the eyes and it ain't easy doin' it! :lol:

[Nan in Mass]

Cool! I should think are right and have some of the same challenges as anybody else struggling with a double language system. Is grade two braille abrieviated in the same manner as texting? Did it develop naturally over time, like texting, or was it invented by one person? And will braille continue, now that computers can read text aloud and transcribe things? Just curious...

-Nan

[Nan in Mass]

I speak a little French, write worse, and read French fairly well. I'm beginning to be able to transfer the reading skill to listening. For awhile, it was pretty ridiculous - I could read a novel but only understand a few little in-between words like "the" when I listened to a movie.

 

I am homeschooling a 12th grader and an 8th grader. When they were in elementary school, I tried to teach them French. They didn't retain anything at all and it got frustrating. I finally got so frustrated that I decided that bad French was a good deal better than no French, and I would just speak French to them. This was very, very hard because I didn't have much spoken French, especially the mummy sort of things and I couldn't remember any grammar or anything. It was more an excersize in how little one can get away with saying to one's children than an immersion French experience. We kept trying, though, and eventually, it worked. Sort of. I had to stop trying with my older one because my French wasn't up to the sort of things I had to say to him, but the littlest one did indeed learn some French. Unfortunately, I got lazy and stopped after about a year, but he continued to read some in French, and last year we found a tutor. Our tutor is gone now, and I want to switch back to speaking French to both the older one and the younger one. The older one is doing French in Action this year and I know I need to solidify his French by speaking it to him and encouraging him to speak to me. So... that is where we are at. I'm trying to remember to switch, trying to get my brain working in French again, trying to improve my own French so I can say something more complicated than brush your teeth... I really need this board.

-Nan

[yvonne]

My husband is French. His whole family is in France, but he came to the States in 1990 to start up a software venture with 5 of his university friends.

 

I'm American, but my major in college was French lang. & lit. and I enrolled at the University of Geneva during my junior year of college. (Geneva is a Piaget stronghold & I've always been interested in child development & education.) My French professor for the couple months I spent in Paris prior to starting at the Univ. of Geneva summed up my French ability: "You have the best written French of any American students I've taught, but you have the worst spoken French." :( And I still am very aware of my lack of proper French diction.

 

My husband speaks only French to the kids, but English to me. Probably because we started out that way before kids. The kids usually respond in English, unfortunately. My dh doesn't want to insist on French because he doesn't want to discourage them from talking to him.

 

We started working with a tutor this year to try to get the kids speaking and reading French more. That's been a very productive activity. We've just finished Alex et Zoe, book 1, with the tutor. As soon as I get the boys registered, we're going to start having them do the CNED French language curriculum.

 

Ultimately, I'd like the kids to speak to my husband consistently in French. I also want them to be sufficiently proficient in French to be able to do a year of school in France, if we're ever able to live there for a year.

 

yvonne

[naturalmom]

I think for most of us who are trying to raise our children to be bilingual, we face many challenges. Either we are not a native speaker ourselves, and need help with resources or new ideas to bring in the language, or we worry about resistance in the children, etc. It's nice to hear what has worked for different people, and just having this forum is an encouragement to me to keep going!

[nmoira]

I'm an anglophone who grew up in Canada at a time French instruction wasn't started until age 13. I dropped it early in high school out of frustration. DD the Elder is learning Latin and she and I are learning Spanish together, though she'd like to add in French and eventually another language. DD the Younger is picking up words and phrases here and there, mostly from Spanish language videos (she loves Pocoyo).

 

Edited to add: Apparently I'm challenged in English too. :)

Edited January 31, 2009 by nmoira

[Storm Bay]

I'm an anglophone who grew up in Canada at a time French instruction until wasn't started until age 13. I.

Me too! All we needed to get into university was one semester of French in gr 8. I took one a year until grade 10. But in one year of university French I caught up to what I could have had in high school--pitiful, isn't it? Because I couldn't really speak it yet and didn't know much.

 

When I was in grade 11 I went to San Francisco, and the high school I went to had a far better French program than I'd had in my home town--they did it every semester, not just one semester a year. What a difference! I quit because the one for my grade was too hard for me and I wanted to do theatre more (such priorities back then;))

[C_l_e_0..Q_c]

We started working with a tutor this year to try to get the kids speaking and reading French more. That's been a very productive activity. We've just finished Alex et Zoe, book 1, with the tutor. As soon as I get the boys registered, we're going to start having them do the CNED French language curriculum.

 

 

Ooh! Alex et Zoé! How did that go? I'm trying to get the French as a Second Language coop to switch over to Alex et Zoé. But no one we know has ever used that textbook. Well, actually, we should start another thread on Alex et Zoé...

[Jen500]

Ooh! Alex et Zoé! How did that go? I'm trying to get the French as a Second Language coop to switch over to Alex et Zoé. But no one we know has ever used that textbook. Well, actually, we should start another thread on Alex et Zoé...

 

I'd like to hear about Alex et Zoe too! I was planning on using SYRWTL French, but I bought some Alex et Zoe workbooks just to look at and for extra practice. (I want to wait until we've been studying Latin for a year before we start any French bookwork)

Right now I just speak French to the kids in simple sentences (when I can remember). We're also listening to some music in French and watching French videos. So far I think ds4 has learned the most French LOL.

[yvonne]

Ooh! Alex et Zoé! How did that go? I'm trying to get the French as a Second Language coop to switch over to Alex et Zoé. But no one we know has ever used that textbook.

 

Alex et Zoe 1 was ok. Its main focus is simple vocabulary, a few standard questions and answers, and expressions/songs. The text is colorful and appealed to the kids. (I thought it was too busy.) There is no grammar to speak of.

 

Vocab included:

counting

colors

family members

pets

school supplies

Christmas

10 or so simple action verbs, but only in the infinitive form

rooms in the home

transportation

 

Tu as quel âge?

Qu'est-ce que c'est?

Qui es-tu? Qu'est-ce que tu fais?, etc.

 

Happy Birthday song

Alouette

Sur le pont, etc

 

We did one Unit each week- textbook and accompanying wkbk pages. (There are 15 units total in A&Z 1.) The children met with the tutor once a week for an hour. She checked their wkbk exercises from the previous week (though I always checked it and had them correct it before class anyhow.) Sometimes she did a brief phonics lesson for some sound. Then she introduced the unit for the week, practiced the vocab. with the pictures in the text, had the kids read through the bande dessinnée, and started an exercise or two in the wkbk. with them.

 

At home, the boys completed the wkbk exercises for the unit and we spent time reviewing vocab, including reading and spelling the words.

 

The best part of using A&Z for us was to get me into a solid routine of doing French daily. Meeting with a tutor once a week was helpful in pushing me to keep up a consistent pace and to be sure we were progressing.

 

Another advantage to A&Z was that the vocabulary was so basic that the kids already knew pretty much all of it. This freed them up to focus on reading and speaking it and to spend time on some grammar I did with them at home on the side. (masc/fem, agreement of adj/noun, first conjugation verbs, etc.) At home, we also went through a Methode de Lecture book by M-C Olivier which covers some basic phonics.

 

A&Z, supplemented with the grammar & phonics, was perfect for where we were. We started out with one other 8 year old boy in our weekly hour with the tutor. He had had some French before, but it wasn't spoken in his home and it wasn't as much of a priority for his family as it was for ours. The one unit a week pace was waaaaay too fast for him to really assimilate the vocabulary. He'll be dropping the class with us and starting a one-on-one class with the tutor.

 

So, I think A&Z works best for kids who have had some French exposure already and whose parents can reinforce it at home. If you do it, I absolutely recommend getting the text, the workbook, & the cd. Depending on how serious you are about doing it, I'd also suggest getting the "Apprends à Lire avec A&Z" book. I didn't know Apprends à Lire existed until a few weeks ago. I use it at home to work on reading French with the kids. It's aligned with the Units from the textbook. We've finished A&Z 1, but we'll be using this Apprends à Lire for a while. There's a lot we can do with it. (Look at verb tenses, parse sentences, look for noun/adj or subj/verb agreement, etc.)

 

And there you have my VERY long summary of our experience with A&Z during the past semester (Sept-Jan.) Hope there's some useful bits of info in there! :)

 

yvonne

[yvonne]

Oh, I should also say..... If you're at all interested in the grammar end of things, First Start French looks really good! I've started that with my 8 yo boys as well. I like that it has a basic, structured approach to grammar. We weren't getting anything like that with A&Z.

 

yvonne

[jenadina]

I'm Jen...we are bilingual (English-Spanish) homeschoolers, but we school mostly in English because my husband rarely remembers to speak Spanish to our son, and our son is resistant when he does. He does, however, speak Spanish to the kids in the neighborhood and other people with no problem. He didn't really start learning Spanish until this past year, when I started babysitting a neighbor's little girl.

 

As for curriculum, right now we are using Rosetta Stone at a rate of about 1 lesson/week, mostly to give him confidence in his ability to speak Spanish. He also reads in Spanish daily, using a standard 1st grade lectura book for our state that we borrowed from the neighbors after her dd finished 1st grade.

 

Where will we go from here? We will absolutely get into Mexican history. I will likely go 3/4:1/4 or 1/2:1/2 for writing assignments when he is older. Any books we come across in our studies that were originally written in Spanish, I would like to read in the original rather than in translation, ie: Don Quixote.

[yvonne]

Hi Jenadina,

 

I like the way your sig line lists what you're doing! I might have to do that. It might push me to keep up with what I want to do!

 

yvonne

[jenadina]

Thanks! Truth be told, though, I haven't done much of anything since Christmas!!! I need to get started again :)

[Jane in NC]

Initially I did not think I belonged over here because "bilingual" is far from what we are!

 

My 11th grade son has studied Latin since a gentle beginning in 5th grade and French using French in Action since 9th grade. Admittedly Latin grammar and vocabulary has helped with the French. When he began his studies, a friend who had lived for several years in francophone Africa initially helped with conversation. But it seemed that FIA moved quickly beyond her memory of the language which she has had rare opportunity to practice.

 

I do all of the exercises in the FIA workbook along with my son. Grammar is usually logical so I can often figure it out, but my memory is not what it used to be. My major problem with French, however, is my inability to hear certain subtlety of sounds. There are slight vowel pronunciation changes that I cannot differentiate, much to my frustration.

 

The revelation that I had though came after talking to parents of high school and college students, many of whom studied or were studying Spanish. Few of these students seemed to have mastered any conversational ability. Granted, Spanish speakers in the US often have a range of dialects which are challenging for students who only have a few years of the language under their belt. So I am taking a different tack from Nan, who strives for oral communication. I decided that what is reasonable for us is to have my son learn how to read French and hopefully understand some spoken French. Learn grammar and vocabulary now and then work on oral communication in the best possible way down the road: by immersion. At this point my son thinks he wants to study archaeology and/or medieval history, so we keep our eyes open for a dig in France that will accept students who are not yet 18.

 

I am very grateful for this board and the opportunity to ask some questions. I just hope that Cleo doesn't become too annoyed with me!

 

Best regards,

Jane

[Laura Corin]

We spent four years in mainland China, and the boys became pretty fluent in Mandarin - not truly bilingual, but fluent. They attend community Chinese school every Saturday, and work on their characters daily. They are not getting the kind of input that they used to, however, and I'm wondering if I should be looking for a student from the local university to just come in and play games with them once or twice a week.

 

My degree is in French and I spent two years living in France. I've just started teaching the boys French (using the Galore Park text) and it's going well. I'm starting to actually believe what they say about brain flexibility: learning foreign languages when young makes it easier to learn more foreign languages.

 

Hobbes also learns Greek (his choice) and Calvin studies Latin. Hobbes will start Latin when he's about ten. H is fascinated by different scripts, and wants to learn Arabic next.

 

Laura

[Nan in Mass]

I kept my high school French alive by reading one book a year. I began with TinTin and progressed through Harry Potter (a huge leap up for me) and then to Agatha Christies (nice, gripping light literature that can be read at a snail's pace and still be interesting). I more or less lost all my ability to speak French, but after about 15 years, I happened to be someplace where I could get French TV, and I discovered that my reading translated into hearing fairly easily, as long as the speaker went slowly enough. I couldn't understand the adult programs, but I could understand the cartoons, something I'd never been able to do before. You just have to listen for a while until your brain converts from seeing the words to hearing the words. You already know them. It was very, very cool. I went back home knowing that I didn't have to worry about anything; all I had to do was keep reading the occasional French book and my French would automatically improve. It was a bit of a push when I wanted to switch to speaking French, but in the end, a short amount of effort led to my being able to speak French much better than when I left school. I think your plan is an excellent one.

-Nan

[Matryoshka]

I kept my high school French alive by reading one book a year.

 

 

Reading is a great way to keep from losing a language (and can even improve it if you challenge yourself!)

 

I keep current on both my Spanish and German by reading in those languages. Lately that's been a lot of Isabel Allende and Cornelia Funke.

 

Someone else mentioned this and I thought I'd agree - if you start a book and it seems too hard, look up every word you don't know (I usually wait till I've seen the word about 3 times and still can't get it from context). You'll find that after about a couple of chapters you can put the dictionary away and read the rest of the book just fine! I haven't had to do this since I first tried García Márquez - that man sure does write dense prose!

[momof165]

We are bilingual homeschoolers (English-German). It's a challange to keep the language going, especially since dh is from the Ukraine. So, we have all kinds of languages spoken at hour house. However, German is the only language (besides Latin) tought at our house at this point. I am using a Waldorf/Montessori approach for most of our hs, including foreign languages. It has worked out beautifully so far. We have not started a formal grammar course for German yet (just copywork) - but I plan to do so next year.

 

It's really nice to see all those bilingual parents on this board.:001_smile:

 

Sonja

_______________________________________

Homeschooling JUST ONE - ds 9

[Renai]

Cool! Didn't know they finally changed this board to a bilingual (multilingual?) board. I will reintroduce myself.

 

We are a bilingual English-Spanish family; dh native Spanish, and I am fluent. We've been homeschooling bilingually since the beginning. But, since 1/26, dd has been in ps. She's being evaluated for learning disabilities. We're hoping to pull her out next week. I was able to get her into a bilingual (read, all Spanish) classroom, as I explained to them it was her stronger language.

 

I had been trying to also teach her German (spent 2 years in Germany as a teen and still have a slight ear for it) and Japanese, but without a plan, it was very easy to put aside. Most of what we have done has been in Spanish (I have math texts through the 5th grade), while learning to read and write in English. History and science have been mostly English though, and supplementing with Spanish books when I find them (we have a great library).

 

We use My Father's World, and native materials for Spanish spelling, grammar, and math, and Rod and Staff for Spanish reading. For Japanese, I have Pimsleur and Teach Me/TM More. I don't have German materials for children, but for me so I can study. We also took a college Intro to Japanese class last summer together, and I think we'll do it again this summer.

[Friederike in Persia]

well, my dc are, I'm just bilingual. Having grown up in Germany I later on married an English man and did a degree at King's College London. After that we moved to Tajikistan, a Farsi speaking country, where we've been living for the last 10 years.

So all 3 kids grew up with those 3 languages from the beginning. They used to be dominant in German, but once I started schooling them mainly in English, their dominace swopped and even longer periods in Germany don't seem to change that any more.

I'm so please this board changed to billingual :hurray:

One of our biggest challenges is finding the time to keep all 3 languages up and still educate in a way more or less akin to what the WTM describes :tongue_smilie:

I'm looking forward to hear a lot more from you others on here :bigear:

[ajjkt]

We don't qualify as bilingual, however, we are trying to raise children that are familiar with languages other than English. We started Latin last year and are enjoying that. At this stage, I hope that they'll study Latin right through.

 

I lived in France in 98-99 and studied seconde (year 10) at the local Lycee. Although I was fluent then, I've pretty much lost my French now. I've started the children at Saturday morning school with the VSL for French. I want them to hear French the way its meant to sound rather than the way I butcher it. I will continue it later with them. The VSL is fantastic as it uses the immersion method and has children from grade 1 - 5 in the one class including native speakers. They came home from week 1 being able to say and understand basic greetings and count to 10.

 

That said, with my three year old I'd be desperately happy if I could understand her English.

[violin69]

We are a multi-cultural expat family living in Slovakia. I was born in the US. My mom was born in Brazil to Latvian parents. My husband is Brazilian. Hubby and I speak English and Portuguese fluently. We are almost fluent in Slovak. We can survive in Lithuanian, Italian, and Spanish; Hubby better than I. My daughter, age 8, is close to fluent in Slovak, understanding but speaking little Portuguese, forgotten Lithuanian, and fluent in English. She's begging me to learn French. My son, age 6, is functional in Slovak, understanding but speaking little Portuguese, forgotten Lithuanian, and fluent in English. We lived 2 years in Lithuania where our kids went to preschool. They have been in a Slovak school for the last 1 1/2 years as we go through language school here. We're afterschooling as well and hope to return to homeschooling this fall so we can work more on Portuguese. We'll hopefully continue the kids in the afterschool program at their present school.

[Joan in GE]

in a Spanish speaking country for a vacation so I'm quite stimulated about language development...

 

We've lived in Geneva for almost 18 years now...

 

I am still not a "bilingual" parent - although I'm working on developing bilingual children.

 

I started homeschooling my oldest when we first arrived. Although he was making great progress, my husband was quite influenced by those around him and ds went into a local public school for 3rd grade on...It was not a good place for him - teacher let students laugh at his accent for months until I finally learned about it and said something to her! Just terrible..but most of the bad things that happened only came to light YEARS later.

 

Second was also at home through second grade...by jr hi level we were finally understanding all the local problems and he went into a private school at just the right time - it was small and well disciplined but now not so great. He's in his first year of university here now.

 

Third is now in 9th grade, never been in an "institution".

 

Fourth is now in 5th grade - never in an institution...

 

It has been a challenge here because bi and tri lingualism are so expected...and I have the local authorities breathing down my back so to speak at the jr hi level. Like you, CleoQc, university is not easy as a homeschooler....

 

Also I'm not sure how useful some of this is since we are in a French speaking country. But people here are amazed that my children can speak French when they have not attended school. That is the only formula with which they are familiar...

 

I had been using programs like Learnables, Power Glide (I cannot recommend this program but used it since I had it), audio forum, etc before reading Opal Dunn's book (Help Your Child with a Foreign Language), which I read when my last was little. Then I started surrounding her with songs and stories in French, nature videos (National Geographic is one of many examples), games and Opal's Learn French tape and game kit (which is now OOP). Then we started going to a French speaking church and getting more involved with French speakers. Before I was so busy homeschooling and being involved with internationals, that I didn't have many French speaking friends. And most of the local children were either in school too late, or no girls, etc, so that our children didn't have friends in the neighborhood. The children were also using educational CD-ROMs made for maternal tongue French speakers, that taught grammar, etc. That way they heard a lot of "good" French (compared to mine that has an accent and mistakes).

 

At that point, I got to be good friends with one lady whose daughter was the same age as mine and they ended up spending a fair amount of time together. Because my daughter knew more French than hers knew English - just from the tapes, etc...French was their language....they would see each other about once a week for short periods. I didn't do much formal study. And she had some trouble learning to read in English so I didn't want to confuse her. Once she learned to read well in English, we started doing phonograms in French and started with easy lessons that require a bit of reading...she also had reading in church Sunday school...

 

My 9th grader did not have the benefit of a good friend when he was young. So he had done all the things above, plus started to read French a bit younger, and had done some Rosetta Stone (the second edition was a bit hard for younger students)...I had workbooks from the local school system, bookstore, etc for some easy conjugation, vocab, orthographe, ...plus I'd bought a fair number of used children's picture books, and done other things mentioned above and in other posts....around in 6th grade he started conjugating one French verb a week...(in a medium sized notebook I made four columns with a line through the middle. Then with je, tu, (il,elle, on), nous, vous, (ils, elles) each on a line did present, future, passe compose, and imparfait in each top of the column. (Now he's using that same notebook and filling in the bottom part with subjunctive, etc) (This system did not work as well for German due to some differences in conjugation)

 

When he had all this background, he started with a tutor in 7th grade who came 2x a week for 1 hour to work on grammar, conjugation and orthographe (spelling). She is a teacher so she has a good idea of what he needs to fill in the gaps...with that extra help, he was able to pass the 6th grade Swiss test doing pretty well. Then in 8th grade he was able to do the 7th and 8th grade Geneva "epreuves communes" doing better than a lot of locals...This was mandatory by the state.

 

All through grade school he was involved in some kind of sports class once or twice a week, and one year a once a week science class in French. Then in 6th grade he started with a youth group in French and this past Christmas vacation he did a ski week camp. My dd has done the same to get added immersion experience without all the torment of full time, but not the youth group or camp yet. They've done Pronatura nature outings where they are taught about something in the wild - edible plants, birdwatching, etc....

 

My daughter is starting her conjugation notebook at a younger age so she doesn't have as much later on. She is also starting a French grammar, etc 3rd grade (used in French public school) Hachette book and reading (3rd grade also in France) Nathan book to get her started at an earlier age.

 

They've both enjoyed tapes and CD's about composers...eg Schumann at www.lepetitmenestral.com BUT I have not personally listened to this series, only other series on tapes...some series are better than others...bird calls, and whatever else I can find at the library that will enrich their experience...

 

They had French notebooks with songs and poems when they were younger. Oh yes, reciting poetry was another exercise...

 

I'm sure I'm forgetting something/many things....but that is the general program off the top of my head...

 

My education, which started with high school French (almost useless), college French (almost useless as well), au pair experience for 6 months in Belgium at the age of 20 (not so great with all that Flemish around but got me speaking child-level concrete French), and now living in Switzerland (but homeschooling so not that exposed)...

 

Best,

Joan

Edited February 13, 2009 by Joan in Geneva
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[Colleen in NS]

Definitely not multilingual here, we are English speakers only. But dh and I both love languages, so we are going to do our best to keep up Latin and a modern language. Currently the modern one is Spanish. For Latin we are doing LC2 now, and will start Henle 1 in the summer. I hope to make our way through at least Henle 2. I've stopped and started since last summer with Spanish - started with Learnables and me looking through an adult grammar book. But the Learnables was frustrating for ds because he couldn't see the words he was hearing and he wanted to compare what he was learning to Latin. So I recently got SYRWTLSpanish and am currently coming up with a doable study plan. I hope to go through all three books of this, over the next three to four years. (??? could be ambitious, I don't know yet) So my goals are to get a good grammar and vocab base in each language, by the time my kids each hit grade 9 or 10, then let them choose whether or not to continue Latin, continue Spanish, or switch to another language. Ds wants to learn French because we live in Canada, and I'm thinking that good bases in Latin and Spanish will make this a breeze for him.

 

I decided that what is reasonable for us is to have my son learn how to read French and hopefully understand some spoken French. Learn grammar and vocabulary now and then work on oral communication in the best possible way down the road: by immersion.

 

LoriM wrote a post a few years ago similar to this - it's what got me thinking that maybe instead of trying the immersion thing first, which was frustrating us for various reasons, I should go the grammar/vocab memory/exercises route (with some immersion things like CDs, music, videos, talking with our Nicaraguan friend - yay! It's hard to find Spanish speakers around here). I like things to be concrete, patterned, you know - logical!! :) Something I can process through and check off! :lol:

 

I kept my high school French alive by reading one book a year...I discovered that my reading translated into hearing fairly easily, as long as the speaker went slowly enough....You just have to listen for a while until your brain converts from seeing the words to hearing the words. You already know them. It was very, very cool.

 

This is good to hear!!!

 

This board is fun to read! I hope it gets busier, too, with talking about learning languages.

[Rosie_0801]

We are working at bringing our kids up to be bilingual in English and Auslan. I've wondered how we should be using Auslan in our homeschool (when we get to that age) so I shall be reading here with interest...

 

Rosie

[Paul's Gal]

We're a bilingual (Eng/Sp) family working towards multilingualism. The kids and I speak only Sp to each other, Eng to everyone else. They do their subject areas in both Eng & Sp, which takes double time because the books are different in each language (eg: the Eng science for 4th is different subject matter than the Sp science for 4th). They also are working through Henle/Wheelock, Mounce/Hey Andrew, and French (of a sort...). It's hard to juggle sometimes, but I think it's going to pay off in the end.

Tonya

www.meanolmama.blogspot.com

[The Governess]

I'm excited to see this board!! We aren't bilingual but hopefully will be at some point (or multi-lingual!). My oldest is learning Mandarin right now - we go to a Mandarin preschool class once a week and I just ordered the Better Chinese curriculum to go through with her at home. I also plan on teaching Latin, Spanish, and Italian - in that order. My dh's father is fluent in Italian and we live in an area with a lot of native Spanish speakers. Mandarin is definitely going to be the most challenging so we are starting it first.

 

The ability to start introducing foreign languages early is one of the many things that I love about homeschooling. It just makes so much sense to study languages when little minds are most receptive to them. I see my four year old learning faster than me and I am just in awe.

[VanessaS]

Great board! My DH is German and the rest of us are dual-nationals (German-American). We're raising the kids bilingually from birth. We HAVE to as we travel frequently between both countries for visits and business.

 

Mine are really young so it's mostly just immersion in both languages. And, of course, the ubiquitous DVDs, CDs, books, magazines, workbooks, and board games.