Hi, I'd be grateful for any suggestions here. A bit of background.
We live in Germany, we are English & speak only english at home. Ds (11) is bilingual (G/E) and attends the local school, which is a language specialist school; after year 10 many of the lessons are bilingual (G/E) so the school has a big interest in languages.
Anyway, since he started in September, we have been concerned that his English lessons are largely a waste of time and a wasted opportunity. If he were an english child in an english school, he would have several english lessons a week. The german kids in the german school obviously have several german lessosn a week.
He is following the same english lessons as all the german kids, so obviously it's way below his ability - totally off the radar. Some of it is useful, ie learning the specific grammar rules, but when it comes to the class and homework, he is doing very basic stuff like writing the correct vocab. word in the gap. It turns out his teacher encourages him to just bring a book to read in class when it's too boring.
At the parents evening, when I queried this, the teacher's suggestion was to deregister him altogether from English! Obviously, I am totally against this. While he can speak and read totally fluently, his written skills need a lot of work.
This issue will also affect my ds2 from September and ds3 in a couple of years.
Ds1 English teacher just called. She's set up a meeting with me, her and the Senior Manager to discuss ds1 English. I obviously want to be as constructive as possible - they seem open to listening to me, and perhaps acting on it. Next year ds2 will go there (I assume) and hopefully in 3 years ds3, and I'm sure they won't be the only English speaking kids in the school, so I'm hoping to propose a policy for native speakers. English is a very significant part of the school, so I think they should have to resources etc and they def. seem to be cooperative. So all good. MY Q is, what do I say!!!!!
My gut feeling is that ds 1 should on the whole follow the main curriculum that all the other pupils do (so here no more work for the teacher). He also is learning grammar points and rules, rather than just 'knowing' the answer iyswim. But when it comes to applying the knowledge, I don't think he should be putting the right verb into the gap, that's a waste of time, or copying out reams of vocab, again, a waste. My thoughts are he should apply the knowledge in a different way, eg use the vocab/grammar rule learnt in the form of a longer piece of writing, a letter, a paragraph on what he did at the weekend, that sort of thing.His written work is the main skill are he needs to work on. Is this enough, or does anyone have any different or better ideas?
Are there any books or resources I could recommend? I think if it doesn't impact on the class, the curriculum or the teacher too much, they are more likely to give it a whirl. What do you think?
Thanks for taking the time to read - it's rather long, sorry!