Hi all, French family here
Jul 30, 2021 17:22:23 GMT 9
Post by Helene on Jul 30, 2021 17:22:23 GMT 9
Hi everyone!
I'm Hélène, a mother of two very active monkeys with a third on the way. My husband and myself are both French and speak mostly French to our children. We also happen to live in France. How boring!
I started speaking English with my eldest daughter about the time her brother was born when she was 19 months old. She didn't talk much in French then and I was under the false assumption that talking to her in another language would confuse her. I now know that it is not entirely false but totally silly. Beatrix Potter's books were the one to pry out her first English word: "cat".
I'm not doing OPOL and even worse I also introduced German and will introduce Russian. My children have German and Russian roots but the German language skipped a generation and the Russian language was learnt at school and forgotten. My husband doesn't speak German and my mother-in-law has a hard time speaking German with the children, it doesn't come naturally even if she speaks it almost fluently. So I'm learning German and passing it on as we go. Russian is a language I love but I have put it aside for now. Focusing on English and German while still talking some Russian and of course, talking about Russia and Russian people, traditions, history and food!
My little girl is 3,5 years old and, with no surprise, she doesn't speak English or German but she understands a lot of vocabulary and prompts. She recently started repeating English and German words. She has always been able to hear the difference between the languages and she enjoys it most of the time when I speak to her exclusively in English (there were a few rejection phases). When she was about 2-2,5 yo I even spent 72h speaking only German and that's how I got her first German words out (essen, it had to be food related). That was fun. But exhausting and limited. For me mostly.
My baby boy is now 21 months old. He doesn't talk much but communicates a lot. He doesn't mind which language I use and mostly understands my English/German prompts.
I'm officially starting our homeschooling journey in September. My girl turned 3 in January and schooling became mandatory the year a child turns 3. They also want to ban homeschool but it's not done yet and we're safe for the coming school year. Not stressful at all...
Our homeschooling is going to be multilingual by nature in the continuity of what I've been doing. My aim is to give my daughter the means of becoming fluent if that's what she wants / needs. Thus I'm giving her the basic vocabulary and teaching her how to read and write in French, English and German. She started Boscher and Jolly Phonics (without the sight words). I'm doing my own thing in German after not finding a satisfactory option that would match Boscher and Jolly Phonics.
Since I'm not doing OPOL and don't intend to send her off to a place where people speak another language and where she would spend most of her day several times a week, I know I can't expect fluency to just kick in out of nowhere.
I'm simply trying to go at a nice snail pace, introducing elements of culture and finding ways to make her love the languages. Of course we would also love to travel to Germany and the UK but, well, not the right time.
I hope we still belong here!
I'm Hélène, a mother of two very active monkeys with a third on the way. My husband and myself are both French and speak mostly French to our children. We also happen to live in France. How boring!
I started speaking English with my eldest daughter about the time her brother was born when she was 19 months old. She didn't talk much in French then and I was under the false assumption that talking to her in another language would confuse her. I now know that it is not entirely false but totally silly. Beatrix Potter's books were the one to pry out her first English word: "cat".
I'm not doing OPOL and even worse I also introduced German and will introduce Russian. My children have German and Russian roots but the German language skipped a generation and the Russian language was learnt at school and forgotten. My husband doesn't speak German and my mother-in-law has a hard time speaking German with the children, it doesn't come naturally even if she speaks it almost fluently. So I'm learning German and passing it on as we go. Russian is a language I love but I have put it aside for now. Focusing on English and German while still talking some Russian and of course, talking about Russia and Russian people, traditions, history and food!
My little girl is 3,5 years old and, with no surprise, she doesn't speak English or German but she understands a lot of vocabulary and prompts. She recently started repeating English and German words. She has always been able to hear the difference between the languages and she enjoys it most of the time when I speak to her exclusively in English (there were a few rejection phases). When she was about 2-2,5 yo I even spent 72h speaking only German and that's how I got her first German words out (essen, it had to be food related). That was fun. But exhausting and limited. For me mostly.
My baby boy is now 21 months old. He doesn't talk much but communicates a lot. He doesn't mind which language I use and mostly understands my English/German prompts.
I'm officially starting our homeschooling journey in September. My girl turned 3 in January and schooling became mandatory the year a child turns 3. They also want to ban homeschool but it's not done yet and we're safe for the coming school year. Not stressful at all...
Our homeschooling is going to be multilingual by nature in the continuity of what I've been doing. My aim is to give my daughter the means of becoming fluent if that's what she wants / needs. Thus I'm giving her the basic vocabulary and teaching her how to read and write in French, English and German. She started Boscher and Jolly Phonics (without the sight words). I'm doing my own thing in German after not finding a satisfactory option that would match Boscher and Jolly Phonics.
Since I'm not doing OPOL and don't intend to send her off to a place where people speak another language and where she would spend most of her day several times a week, I know I can't expect fluency to just kick in out of nowhere.
I'm simply trying to go at a nice snail pace, introducing elements of culture and finding ways to make her love the languages. Of course we would also love to travel to Germany and the UK but, well, not the right time.
I hope we still belong here!
