Oh, wow, you are in India, I didn't realize that! So interesting how many people there are here from all parts of the globe. We have a French immersion public elementary school near us, but we originally wanted the kids to go to Jewish day school, and that won out... and now, I'm loving homeschooling so much I don't think I could give it up for any school, LOL. Although, sometimes I wonder if it's really the homeschooling I love, or the researching, planning, and scheduling.. and buying curriculum! All that stuff is so much fun.

I'm not a French native either (unless you can make it happen by wanting it badly enough) :) but I'm hoping my youngest will consider himself native. I drool over the CNED curriculum. I LOVE French school materials. I'm keeping in the back of my mind using the CNED stuff for the youngest, but also for the others if I can get them up to speed (especially if we go to France for a while).

First (this isn't what I'm so excited about in the title of the thread), we've had a great improvement in attitude here. My DD used to burst out crying when I tried to speak French to her, and now all of a sudden she wants me to speak in French to her all the time, and even berates me if I speak English! Also, though she's had little French, she's surprising me with how much she's figuring out from cognates (it helps a lot that her English vocabulary is so extensive from all the reading she does). For example, I say "Je suis fatiguée" and she says, "You said you are tired!" When I ask how she knew that, she'll say "from the word 'fatigued' in English." Also, she used to "hate" Hebrew as well. Now all of a sudden, she's gotten so focused and ambitious. She now wants my DH to speak Hebrew to her all the time, and she does her Hebrew homework the second her tutor leaves. She's decided she wants to be fluent in French and Hebrew and then move on to more languages! I'm so happy she's changed how she feels about this, since languages are my first love. My next "attitude problem" was my 6 year-old DS, who at first would yell out, "I hate French! Don't ever speak French to me!" The magical turning point? I searched you-tube for Caillou videos in French. He watched a couple and said, with big round eyes, "I didn't realize French could be cartoons." LOL. Now he wants me to teach him French. Now, finally, to the title of my post. We have been discussing trying to go to Paris for January-March of 2012. My husband is a professor of biomedical engineering, and there is an institute that hires adjuncts for short, 8-week courses in the winter. I thought we were talking about just doing this once, so I asked him why he couldn't take a full semester sabbatical. He answered that if he did that he would only be able to do it once; he's looking for something we could repeat every year. I had NO IDEA he was talking about our going to Paris January-March EVERY year. I'm so excited at this idea I can't contain myself. It's the perfect solution. I miss Paris so much, and want the kids to speak French, but we can't live there full time and have the careers we want. So this would be amazing! Thanks for listening, if you got this far!

I am a perfectionist. So on the one hand, in theory, I very much want to be corrected so that I can learn to speak a language "perfectly." On the other hand, I sometimes become deeply mortified, almost paralyzed with embarrassment, if I find out I have made a silly mistake in a foreign language. However, I'd rather be corrected than be making the same mistake over and over without realizing it.

Oh, you are so lucky to have your mother there to speak with! I'm not a native speaker, though my level is near-native and I don't have an accent. I was a French major in college, and went to law school in Paris and worked as a lawyer there. My second child was born there, but we moved back to the States when my DD was 3 and my first DS was 18 months. I had hoped we were going to stay in France, so my plan was to speak English to my children and have them learn French by living in France, but then we moved back before they learned any French, and I didn't manage to switch to speaking French to them. I'm trying to fix it now. I was so excited this morning - I said to the baby, "Il est où, papa?" and the baby immediately looked right at my DH. DH said he thinks the baby responds better to French than to English. Yay!!!

I'm in the same situation (other than with the baby, whom I'm speaking French to), trying to get the others up to speed. I've tried dinner time in French, bath time in French, etc. It's never stuck. The first time we tried dinner time (did I tell this story already?) my dd started crying, saying I seemed like a different person, not her Mommy, when I spoke French to her. Now, all of a sudden, Wham, she's had a change of heart and is BEGGING me to speak French to her. She doesn't even want me to translate, she wants to figure it out. But if I switch to French, my 6 year old DS starts yelling, "No, I hate French, never speak French!" LOL. I think I'm going to try to use just French with her (translating when absolutely necessary) and the sandwich method with the others. Also, I'm so excited because we might get to go to France for 3 months next year. I know that's not very much time, but it will help, and also I'm thinking the olders will want to work hard on their French before we go, in anticipation of the trip.

That is completely adorable!! Well, we can encourage each other to keep it up. What is your background? Are you a native French speaker?

Hi, all. I posted here a few months ago, but I changed my user name and it retroactively changed the name on all my posts. I don't want to say what my old name was because I (stupidly) used my whole real name. Here's the link to my most recent post here: http://welltrainedmind.com/forums/showthread.php?t=201093 Anyway, I am going to try to be more part of this board. I am continuing to speak only French with the baby, and some with my three year old, who can generally respond to some simple commands in French now, but the others haven't really progressed. It's been a really busy year! The idea that the baby could be bilingual still seems like an impossible dream to me - I can't wait till he starts talking to see what language it comes out in.

I can't really help with any materials, but have you spoken to the school about this? It seems odd if close to 40% of the kids are non native speakers that they wouldn't have a French language class designed to get the Anglophone kids up to speed. This can't be the first time they've had a situation like this. What happens in the other classes? Is it just French class that is taught entirely in French, or are the other classes also? As far as materials, I'm curious to see what others recommend. I bought l'Art de Dire for my 5 year-old and I find it very disappointing, not an impressive program at all. Good luck!

Hi everyone, I haven't been around in a while. I had joined the board a couple of months (?) ago, and asked about getting my kids up to speed in French. I also vowed to speak only French to the baby I was expecting. Well, with him, so far, so good. He was born July 4, and so far I've spoken only French when I'm directly addressing him. However, I'm realizing how much more there is than just speaking directly to someone... all the other talking he hears around him is in English. Since he's too young to really interact with, he's just hearing a stream of talking from me, it's way too soon for him to be actually learning any words. It's mainly "Yes, my baby, don't cry, Mommy's here, I'm changing your diaper, I'll nurse you in a minute, oh, do you have a burp?..." - stuff like that. But I have managed to make it automatic, so if I start to say something to him in English it feels weird. I think that's half the battle. Now I need to get back to teaching my other kids more French. With the baby being born and everything, we've kind of stalled out on doing anything else, other than sticking them in front of Muzzy. Simply switching to speaking French to them won't work, it ends up causing a huge rebellion - they just don't understand it and get really annoyed. We are starting homeschooling for the first time this year, so we'll see how it goes when the school year gets underway. Right now the oldest three are in day camp, so there isn't really time. I'll try to be around more! I have been reading the board, just mostly too tired to post.

I love it. Thanks for posting that! (And by the way, sorry for disappearing from the board for ages... I had a baby July 4, and have been too tired to post, though I have been reading. I'll post an update (if anyone even remembers me, anyway...)

I learned French from a g-t approach. I started in 8th grade, had a very typical (though strong) prep-school French class culminating in AP lit in 12th grade. By the end of high school, I was not completely fluent, but was pretty proficient, and had a good accent. I LOVED French, did not find grammar boring (in fact, I'm a complete nerd that way, love grammar of any kind) and always felt I was making progress. I would add that clearly not everyone in my class felt that way! I went on to major in French in college, usually taking 2 French literature or civilization classes per semester. When I got to France for my junior year, I already spoke/read/wrote well, but there is no question that actually being in France, living there and having all my classes in French, marked a HUGE leap forward in accent, comprehension, vocabulary, slang, etc. It's the difference between (a) being to have a one-on-one conversation, using good grammar, in a quiet room, with an interlocutor who is careful to speak correctly, and (b) being able to understand and converse at a loud, crowded party with the lights dimmed, or to understand a movie. It was around half way through my junior year in France that people started thinking I was French unless I told them I was American, and also that I stopped having a dictionary nearby when I read. I am teaching 8th grade (first year) French for the first time this year in the school where my kids go (we are starting home schooling next year but I'll still be teaching one class at the school). I started with firm intentions of speaking only French to the students, and I backed off pretty quickly, because they stared at me in abject terror. There is a huge range of abilities in the class. I've been very frustrated with how slow the progress is, but I honestly don't think most of the kids are capable of learning more -- unless they were in an immersion environment. They have French Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday for 45 minutes per day. That's just not sufficient for most people. So here's my take on the whole thing: if you are motivated and naturally good at languages, you can learn either way. In fact, for me, the way my brain works, I FAR prefer the systematic grammar approach. I've worked on other languages with the immersion approach (as an adult), and I think it's really annoying to be taught how to say "he goes" several lessons before "I go," and then before you are finished with the present tense they've taught you "I will go" or "I went" but not the rest of the future or past. I would far rather have a page of conjugations in front of me and just plain memorize it. When I do, I own it, and that's that. Otherwise I feel a bit anxious. However, I recognize that for many students, particularly children, that's really, really boring, and makes them think of the language as just a "class," not a living language to be used with real people. I think whether either immersion or grammar works well depends mostly on whether the student really cares about learning the language, and also to some extent on native ability, once you get past a certain age. My two oldest kids (10 and 8) have had the same Hebrew teachers in Jewish day school, followed the same curriculum, but my 8 year-old is much more fluent than my 10 year-old, just because he's frankly more talented at it. However, if we went to Israel for 2 years (a girl can dream, right?) my guess is that at the end of that time even my now ten year-old would be fluent. I think there has to be a happy medium. I agree with all of you who have said that immersion is great for little kids, since, after all, that's how they are learning their native language, but later, since adult brains work differently and are capable of more intellectual exercises, g-t is necessary. As children get older, they need grammar, spelling, etc. in their OWN language, so why wouldn't you do that for an adult learning a foreign language as well? I've learned a lot in this first year of teaching. I think with next year's eighth graders, I will definitely speak more French in class with them, and be stricter about their asking me questions in French. However, it will not be total immersion, because it can't be, 45 minutes three days a week. As for my own children, especially the younger ones, I need to be more trusting of immersion. I have a strong tendency to jump in and translate because of my anxiety that they don't understand. For example, cuddling before bed, I'll say, "Je t'aime, Mattan. I love you" rather than just "je t'aime." And when I read or sing to them, I also translate as well as read. As I've posted before (I think) when they watch Muzzy, I tend to jump in and say, "do you understand? What does 'grand' mean? What does 'petit' mean? Did you hear him order a hamburger?" rather than just trust the process. I'm hoping I'll do better with new baby (due in 8 weeks). If I speak French from the beginning, maybe I'll be less nervous about the whole thing. Sorry this post is so long!!

I just had to pop in to this conversation and tell you what a beautiful place Martinique is (or was when I was there, yikes, 19 years ago, am I really that old?). In Paris, I had a roommate from Martinique, and when I graduated from college in the U.S., I went to visit her for a week. What a wonderful place. There is definitely an "accent martiniquais" that is noticeably different from a French accent of the "Métropole" but they speak very standard French because it is a French département (politically though not geographically part of France itself) and so the school system is exactly the same as in France.

LOL. I know, I understand it, but the way they are saying it makes me realize that THEY aren't understanding it. I think they think it's someone's name!

Now I see why I've had trouble just switching to French with my kids. My anxiety level is too high, and I jump in to translate, thinking there's no way they can be understanding. I can't just trust the process. How are they going to suddenly understand?? Humorous example: At one point in Muzzy, army soldiers are repeating, "Emmenez-le, emmenez-le!" ("Take him away, take him away!") and my kids, having no clue what they are talking about, are now marching around the house shouting "Homminy Lou! Homminy Lou!" Just trust and keep going, right?

I have this book for myself, actually. Have had it for years, but haven't used it. I didn't know it had an audio component, though.

Got it. Thanks everyone! And Rosie, wanted to say my DD's name is Rosie and it startles me when I see your name! I hardly know any Rosies.

Shifra, thank you! I just looked at the Shy Publishing site, and these are the books they use in my kids' school for Ivrit. I don't think they use the same thing for Chumash, though. These look great, I could really design a curriculum with these, though I do need to improve my own level to do it well. However, armed with my Israeli friends and my trusty dictionary, I can manage these.

Thanks, I'll check it out! The only website I knew about was chinuch.org., and that is just millions of random worksheets uploaded by different Jewish educators. It gives me a headache trying to piece it together. My Hebrew is not what I want it to be (DH and I didn't grow up observant, so we've tried to play catch-up as adults), but I'm hoping to have an Ivrit tutor for both the kids and me.

I actually need suggestions here too! I've been posting about our French needs, but I didn't also mention that our kids have been in Jewish Day School up to now and we have to figure out the Hebrew and Judaics portions of our homeschool curriculum. It seems like there's not really much available for homeschoolers. So I'd love to hear these answers too!

Feel free to call me "Jen" ;) Unfortunately, I don't know anything about literature intended specifically for teens; by the time I was really up and running as a French reader, I was in college. In high school, I read the literature that was assigned for my French AP Lit class, but that's not "fun" reading for teens. I think the AP syllabus at the time (1987) was Le Colonel Chabert (Balzac), Trois Contes (Flaubert), Moderato Cantabile (Marguerite Duras), Candide (Voltaire), Huis Clos (Sartre), and I can't remember what else, maybe some Camus. In general, I tend to go for the classics anyway. I'm particularly devoted to anything written in the 19th Century - my favorites being some of the "usual suspects," Zola, Stendhal, Flaubert, Hugo, and Maupassant. Do you think your DD is too young to start on anything like that? Are you going to completely laugh at me for being so out of touch? Another thought - when my DH started reading in French, he read a lot of Daniel Pennac. He writes novels for both children and adults - I don't know if anything is specifically aimed at teens. I'm sorry, I'm not being much help. I'm thinking actually, an old friend of mine works for a large French chain of bookstores - I could FB her and ask for some suggestions.

Hmm, so what makes me "just visiting" rather than a larva? Was I supposed to specifically join this board as opposed to just registering generally for the WTM forums?

I can't find the answer anywhere on the site. Can someone clue me in about the "queen bee" and "hive worker" stuff? Is it just how many posts you have?

Fluent but non-native if you are a stickler for actual reality, as in, both my parents are American and I grew up in the U.S., LOL. In my mind? I self-identify as partly French.

I was also using cned.fr, I didn't know there was another site. I'm going to look at that now. I can't BELIEVE you can get the materials free. Wow.