to wonder if he will be too advanced when his class starts learning French?

[GoingLoopyLou]

DS is 4 and has been having French lessons for the last six months through La Jolie Ronde, once a week for half an hour. He loves it and is doing really well.

He starts primary school in September and his school don't start teaching French until he is in Year 3.

I'm just a bit concerned that they will be being taught to say Bonjour and count to ten in French etc and he will have done that 4 years previously. Has anyone else had this problem and what did you do?

And that's fine and understandable but maybe you could refrain from judging unless you have all the facts, and if you are just going by my OP then can I just say how pleasant you obviously are -

"But maybe he'll struggle with something else. Maybe he won't be very good at maths for example. Best let him be ahead with something."

I find the last sentence particularly "nice"

Working - I'm well aware of how AIBU works and am willing to listen to both yay's and nay's for the question I asked. I did not ask if I was being unreasonable to let my child learn a foreign language and you will see that the responses I have given relate to the judging on that front.

Your response is certainly interesting but as much as you are adamant it made no difference to your children I can't help bit think it may have made them more responsive to learning and their understanding of it. After all, studies do show that the earlier they start to learn a foreign language the better, even if this doesn't materialise til layer life.

Agree there is no better way of learning than the example you give with your son, but I don't think I'm wrong for giving him a headstart, I was just genuinely concerned about the impact later on, which I'm still none the wiser on really as I've had a really mixed bag of even the positive responses.

wIOAIG I don't think the OP has any difficulty with being told the opposite of what she is thinking, but some of the posts on this topic have been downright rude and uncalled for. Someone told her earlier that her child would hate her - entirely baseless, uncalled for and nasty. I don't think anyone should have to tolerate that or expect it just cos they are posting in AIBU.

"When we go abroad on holiday I am constantly amazed at how good our European neighbours are at speaking English and am actually embarrassed that as a country us Brits are generally so bad at giving another language a go and EXPECTING them to be able to speak English to us."

I totally agree with this and have felt the same way many times. English is actually supposed to be quite a difficult language to learn as well.

GLL sounds like a cliche but trust your instincts, only you know what will pay off as far as your son is concerned. If the school won't support his advanced skills and he enjoys the topic I wouldn't hesitate in arranging further private classes. Perhaps at senior school they will be more supportive.

Too many judgey pants out tonight!

Thanks Mare. La Jolie Ronde do teach upto the age of 12 but like I said earlier he may have had enough of it in a years time anyway!

There are always private tutors after that, if necessary. If that's not too "middle class" for some people,

But Mare...AIBU invites people to judge...!!! That's how it works and it's U of you to carp, in this way. Am super MC myself, gosh I even have 3 DCs at private school so promise you class envy isn't at the root of my comment.

It was quite an arch OP. And as such, deserved what it got, which were some jokey replies.

But I hope, GLL, you see what I was trying to say which is I am totally with you on encouraging language skills and am sure it a great idea to expose your DS early. But it would be unrealistic of you to expect he will outshine everyone else as a result of 30 mins a week. I was most frustrated that after 8 years of learning my two oldest DCs couldn't hold a conversation in French!!!

Tbh I think the best way to learn a language is to be constantly conversing with native speakers so I can understand some people's point that 1 hour or 30 mins or whatever a week may not make that much of a difference. However, I do think it's worthwhile exposing them to it at an early age when they do absorb things much easier and perhaps aren't as self conscious about trying different accents etc.

I predict that when your ds starts French at school he will be recognised as the fluent little precious he is and that the teacher will stop all the other children and decree 'shut it kiddies, why didn't someone tell me I was getting the linguistic Stephen Hawkins? He knows the past imperfect'.

Pay for extra tuition/speak a little French to him/get him to order your vin on your holiday by all means but - really - if you think this is a concern, or a worry, or a problem then you need an English dictionary not a French one.

YABI

My 3 year old DD goes to French class every Saturday morning and has been going since just after her third birthday. We both love it and I find I am learning the language much better through the play, songs etc than I ever did at school with bloody verb tables and textbooks.

We've been going about 8 months now and she can count, knows her colours, various animals, shops, items etc and short sentences etc in French.

It's a real highlight of my week and nothing but positive. Ignore the stick OP.

WIOAIG the middle class comment was aimed not at you but an earlier poster. Perhaps judgey pants wrong terminology, but deliberate nastiness i do have a problem with.

They teach French in Primary??

Gosh, you have had a hard time, OP.

I don't think that your DS will have problems when he has French at school. The teacher will be able to adjust lessons to suit all the childrens' abilities. I would imagine that they other children will catch up on the vocabulary quite fast, but your DS will have an advantage with regard to accent and he will likely be more comfortable with the language.

My DC are trilingual and we have the situation Greythorne described - that they are doing German lessons in French speaking school. DD's German is better than the teachers. They cope. :) I think the teacher sometimes asks DD to help.

There is nothing wrong with teaching a child another language from an early age. The time before 7yo is the best time to learn a language, in UK most children will not be taught before then. After 7/8yo it becomes more difficult.

Catgirl
Many 4yos cannot read. My DD was 6yo before she started school and could not read. She is now 9yo and is reading and writing stories in 3 languages. If the children start to read later, they tend to be reading fluently very fast - and not using phonics or sight words.

Actually OP the comment about swim lessons answers yr question I think.

My DC have had swim lessons from the age of 4 and could all swim pretty well by say 6yo. At our school they have swim lessons in school in Yr 4. It was certainly not an issue that they could already swim, and the ability in the class varied from "good swimmer" to "never been in a pool" [().

Basically the swim lessons were, as yr 4-5-6 French lessons prob will be, pretty superficial; a bit of knowledge garnered whenever and wherever will help, most likely, but probably not cause a problem.

Bit shocked by catgirl's posts but then I saw she has no DC. None of mine could read before they went to school. It's a bit of an MN myth that msot children can. IME very much not the case (and I live and have helped in school in an affluent middle-class suburb where I bet the parents read to their children!)

Rhinestone, I hope you are also having your cat taught Italian. Otherwise it simply will not be capable of a full and deep understanding of Renaissance art. Latin would be handy too.

Catgirl!

I was read to voraciously as a pre-schooler by both my parents, but especially by my Mum who is passionate about book (belonged to a Children's Literature group, and worked part time in a bookshop for years). She installed a life-long love of reading in me, but I was not able to read when I started school!

My Dad also tried to teach me the alphabet before I started school but I simply wasn't interested (even though I adored books and stories). He wisely decided not to push and let me learn in my own good time.

Further - I only started school at the age of five - as is the normal starting age here in NZ. So by the age of five (five!) I was unable to read.

It certainly hasn't held me back. There is a considerable school of thought which says that 4 is too young (especially for boys) to start school, anyway. A lot of this thinking is behind the NZ policy to have new entrants start at 5. Plus, they don't all wait and start at the beginning if the school year - they start when they turn 5 so everyone is on an equal footing.

NZ's primary school educational record is world-class (google it), so I can confidently say that any child starting school aged 4 unable to read will be the norm just fine. Admittedly, so long as they have been exposed to books and other means of learning along the way. :)

Sorry for going OT!

Sorry for the typos!

My DD is looking forward to starting school in England. She's had a year of French lessons so she thinks she will be the class star. I am doubtful.
We went to Paris a couple of months ago, two weeks before she told me she wasn't listening in French any more because she knew everything there was to know about the language
On the way, she said she would deal with everything because she knew French. when we got to the hotel, me and DH (who does speak fluent French) asked her to go and put it into practice.
She very confidently approached the front desk and said 'Ah belive we 'ave ze rezervassion pour le family upstairs' in a ridiculous accent. All the words were spoken in English but wiz ze fronch tweest.

I thought that you were going to say he had French as a first language! I have known French DCs living over here who start French lessons in yr 3 and the teacher copes with them, so I really don't think that he will have a problem!

Mine has been doing french weekly in year 1. Its not really made a jot of difference. Its just a fun after school class imo

:o Kreecher. I think I love your DD

I had a similar type of fun language lessons as a kid, and beyond the first few weeks I had no advantage once I had that language in school. (Admittedly I'm useless at languages.)

As a native English speaker I got along fine in the English classes in 3 different high schools in 2 different non-English speaking countries. (Covered "Macbeth" 3 times! Got brilliant grades. ) It was just all the other subjects I had problems with ...

There is huge difference between the english learning a foreign language and a foreigner learning english, you just can' compare them. European children in particularly are immersed in english through television,film, pop music from a birth.English is a universal language My DCs have watched tv in the Netherlands and a lot of it was in english, even the pop music from Dutch teenybopper groups such as Chipz sing in english.

My DCs did french in nursery which they really enjoyed, dd went on to join french club at primay once she was in junior and both her and DS had french lessons in primary in yr5 or 6. The lessons were taught by a french lady who came into the school once a week, but she was not a good teacher and couldn't control the class. None of it gave them a particular head start partly because they are not particularly language orientated and neither do/or will do french at gcse. DS has chosen german and DD will probably take italian.

I actually could speak greek as a child, my friends said i spoke to my grandmother in greek, she died when I was 9 and I have no memory of speaking greek at all and because my father never spoke greek to us and my mum was english, it was a skill I lost. I did do german to o'level and have a better grasp of german.
Unless a child is really immersed in a language, and or really interested, I really don't see how they are going to be fluent in it.