Intro French for Gr. 2 and Gr. 5

[Eilonwy]

I’m looking for suggestions for intro French materials that could be used for a Gr. 2 and Gr. 5 student together, if possible.  I have used Whistlefritz but I’d like something with more direct instruction than that.  I’ve also used CAP’s French for Children A and B with my 13 year old, but found the videos way too long, and too grammar-heavy for my two younger kids at this point.  Duolingo has only been moderately successful for these two, with other languages, though it worked well for my oldest for a while. I’d rather it not be all on the computer. 
Anything that’s worked well for you? 

[wendyroo]

We love The ULAT, but it is all on the computer. It puts a heavy emphasis on immersion and getting students actually speaking the language.

[HomeAgain]

Nallenart's Art de Lire worked well here for a few years.  A level provides enough material for 2-3 days a week, IIRC, so you can definitely do two levels in a year if you wanted.  I bought the pdfs because shipping from Canada would have been outrageous.  I liked that it focused on phonics in units.

You can try Getting Started With French.  Not on the computer, not too grammar heavy, and you can do it orally at your own speed.

[Eilonwy]

36 minutes ago, wendyroo said:

We love The ULAT, but it is all on the computer. It puts a heavy emphasis on immersion and getting students actually speaking the language.

Thanks, @wendyroo. This is not one I’d heard of before. Do your kids in the 7-10 age range use this? What do your kids like about it?  Computer-based is not a show-stopper, and I like the idea of getting them speaking.  That’s something that neither French for Children nor Duolingo do all that well (I’ve heard some people get a speaking component to Duo but I’ve never been able to get it to work). 

[Eilonwy]

44 minutes ago, HomeAgain said:

Nallenart's Art de Lire worked well here for a few years.  A level provides enough material for 2-3 days a week, IIRC, so you can definitely do two levels in a year if you wanted.  I bought the pdfs because shipping from Canada would have been outrageous.  I liked that it focused on phonics in units.

You can try Getting Started With French.  Not on the computer, not too grammar heavy, and you can do it orally at your own speed.

Thanks, @HomeAgain, I’ll have a look at both of these.  Is Art de Lire story-based?
 

ETA: Phonics focus would be really suitable for my 10 year old.  He needed quite a bit of phonics instruction to learn to read English, and he really liked the clear rules. 
 

We are in Canada anyway so shipping wouldn’t be too bad.  I need to start the younger two on French so that they can communicate with the francophones in our province. 
 

ETA:  How far does Getting Started go compared with Art de Lire?  

Edited August 30, 2021 by Eilonwy

[wendyroo]

1 hour ago, Eilonwy said:

Thanks, @wendyroo. This is not one I’d heard of before. Do your kids in the 7-10 age range use this? What do your kids like about it?  Computer-based is not a show-stopper, and I like the idea of getting them speaking.  That’s something that neither French for Children nor Duolingo do all that well (I’ve heard some people get a speaking component to Duo but I’ve never been able to get it to work). 

All my kids, starting around 5 watch the Spanish videos (he speaks and has nearly identical courses in Spanish, French and English). Some are really fun - Mr. Nesbit will argue with "his brother" (really himself in split screen) about who is more handsome or better at sports. From the first lesson he talks with students very conversationally, asks questions, tells stories about himself and his family, etc. Other videos are more utilitarian - introductions to verbs and vocab, explanations about grammar concepts, all in the target language. I really like how he uses pictures and movements to cue students about various words and language structures instead of any spoken or written English. That method helps the student think in the target language rather than always translating from English, and when one of my kids mis-conjugates a verb or forgets a reflexive pronoun, I can easily cue them with the hand gesture and they self-correct.

The online activities that correspond to each video are very low tech (and still avoid all English). Most have the students speaking - the course is entirely pictorial and verbal for a long time. They might listen, repeat, name objects pictured, do hand gestures that correspond to verbs, form statements, form questions, answer questions, etc. My young kids sometimes want to try the activities, but I don't push them until they are 7ish.

The only real downside for us is the unpredictability of the lessons. Some of the videos are long, so we split them up. Other videos are very short. Some lessons have a video, then activity, then video, etc. Others are review lessons with all activities. Mr. Nesbit suggests just deciding how long you want students to study, covering whatever you can, and then starting where you left off the next session. They would be more convenient for me if they followed a more predictable structure, but we make due. Also, I would pay GOOD money for the system to remember what lesson we left off on, but it is far too low tech for that. The first 15 lessons are free to try out, and you can access the whole course for a very affordable yearly subscription charge. 

[HomeAgain]

10 hours ago, Eilonwy said:

Thanks, @HomeAgain, I’ll have a look at both of these.  Is Art de Lire story-based?
 

ETA: Phonics focus would be really suitable for my 10 year old.  He needed quite a bit of phonics instruction to learn to read English, and he really liked the clear rules. 
 

We are in Canada anyway so shipping wouldn’t be too bad.  I need to start the younger two on French so that they can communicate with the francophones in our province. 
 

ETA:  How far does Getting Started go compared with Art de Lire?  

So,, AdL is sort of story based.  Each unit opens with a cartoon panel story to learn the new vocabulary.  The next activities are a grammar page, retelling the story in order (numbering the boxes or writing the sentence), vocabulary work in the form of crosswords, matching, etc, and another possible verb page or plurals vs singular, m v. f.

Getting Started introduces one new word a day.  The first few exercises are very short because they only have 1-3 words to work with, but after that they stretch to 10 sentences to translate each day using the new word and the previously learned vocabulary.  Grammar lessons are sprinkled in as needed.

By the time a kid is done, they really only have about 100-160 unique words or verb families, but they are very confident with them.

We were able to pair both with Telefrancais on youtube, also produced in Canada, and each of those helped to extend the vocabulary after it was learned in the above programs.  We also switched preschool cartoons like TroTro to French on Netflix.  The language is so repetitive and the storyline is slow enough for a beginner to follow.

You may be able to find another resource we use, too.  I order the J'apprends a lire avec Sami et Julie books from amazon.fr, mostly because they are the only ones I have found with clear teaching: the unvoiced endings are shaded in grey, they add liason marks when necessary, and there is sound/vocab work at the beginning of the books at the start of the series, plus comprehension questions at the end.  For a kid who needed to move beyond GSWF they were a good fit.

[TheAttachedMama]

I would suggest that you first teach them to speak and listen/understand French.   (The same way we often learn our first language.). When they have a foundation in that, I would then add in writing and reading.   I've had GREAT success with Paul Noble products.   They are available on audible.   We used the product for adults, but he now has a new program for kids.  

 

 

[Eilonwy]

On 8/29/2021 at 11:02 PM, wendyroo said:

The online activities that correspond to each video are very low tech (and still avoid all English). Most have the students speaking - the course is entirely pictorial and verbal for a long time. They might listen, repeat, name objects pictured, do hand gestures that correspond to verbs, form statements, form questions, answer questions, etc. My young kids sometimes want to try the activities, but I don't push them until they are 7ish.

I tried the first lesson with the two kids, with mixed reviews.  He goes through the lesson, and then through the activities in the video.  I’m not sure if he does this for all the activities or just when he’s explaining the different kinds of activities. If he keeps that up, do you get your kids to watch him do it and then do it themselves, or just do it themselves and check the video of the activity if confused? My 10 year old found it too repetitive, but I think it was also that he couldn’t understand very much yet.  Also, do you find the timers useful and get your kids to time themselves?

I really like that ULAT is so focused on verbal French. I think CAP’s French for Children is good for understanding grammar but not so good at listening and speaking and that’s a hole in my older child’s French ability. 
 

13 hours ago, TheAttachedMama said:

I would suggest that you first teach them to speak and listen/understand French.   (The same way we often learn our first language.). When they have a foundation in that, I would then add in writing and reading.   I've had GREAT success with Paul Noble products.   They are available on audible.   We used the product for adults, but he now has a new program for kids.  

Thanks, @TheAttachedMama,  this does make sense as a strategy and I’ll have a look at Paul Noble’s materials. 
 

On 8/30/2021 at 8:13 AM, HomeAgain said:

We were able to pair both with Telefrancais on youtube, also produced in Canada, and each of those helped to extend the vocabulary after it was learned in the above programs. 

We could definitely do this, thanks for the idea.  I found the Julie et Sami books too, and I see what you mean about the grey for silent letters, that’s clever. 

[Eilonwy]

On 8/29/2021 at 11:02 PM, wendyroo said:

I really like how he uses pictures and movements to cue students about various words and language structures instead of any spoken or written English. That method helps the student think in the target language rather than always translating from English, and when one of my kids mis-conjugates a verb or forgets a reflexive pronoun, I can easily cue them with the hand gesture and they self-correct.

@wendyroo, thanks so much for recommending ULAT.  We’ve been spending time on this twice a week since September, and it is working out really well for my two younger kids.  They practice with each other. The hand gestures do help to give cues without speaking English, and the frequent listening and speaking practice is really good too. It’s a great program.