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?

I should really read my posts as that first paragraph doesn't make sense!

Some schools are great at this but most are not.
He will probably learn better French with this program than at school IME.
If the school is good they will hire a tutor for your DS (if he's good enough-not just that he can count to 100 and they to 10).

I think starting learning another language as early as possible is great. Research shows the earlier they start the better. As long as the child is enjoying the lesson then all is well. Both my nieces started French when they were in year 1 on Saturday mornings and in year 3 at school. Both have suberb pronunciation/accent in French - in fact I'm pretty jealous. The eldest found the lessons in school absolutely fine even though she was ahead of the class. She stopped the Saturday lessons at the end of year 4 as school was providing enough by this stage.

I also worked in an international school where children were often fluent in 2 or 3 languages by the age of 6. That early grounding in languages was amazing and they could pick new languages really quickly. Sooooo jealous.

OP - I think its great that your DC is enjoying his lessons and I'm sure he will be fine when he starts french in school

bruffin - I understand what you mean.

I have also heard of children losing languages if they never had the opportunity to speak them after leaving the country, or as you say, your grandmother died.

Bruffin
It is true that teaching a foreign language at a young age does not mean that the child will later be fluent. But introducing a foreign language as a fun activity means that when the child goes on to learn that language at school, it is not so - well foreign.

I used to teach English to German preschoolers. We even had a baby group, incorporating baby signing, singing songs in English etc. It was fun for the DC, they enjoyed class.

In Germany English teaching is mind numbingly boring that many DC are put off learning the language. It is all learning by rote and lists of vocabulary.

op. I shouldn't worry too much about this ruining his education because a. He won't exactly be fluent b. The French they do at primary school is very basic. It's not a core subject by any means

So don't stay awake at night worrying

As for British people not learning other languages I agree that we are very lax but tbh we can get away bring lazy because we are in the fortunate position of speaking the "international" language that everyone else needs to learn.

Having said that I speak reasonably good French, a little Dutch and always try and learn basic words in the language of where er I'm going because it's polite and interesting

I think the OP might be somewhat naive about what can be achieved with foreign language lessons for one hour a week / 200 hours by the time her starts French at school (OP's estimate).

I have neices and nephews in the UK who have done French Clunpb and French lessons in school through primary. They satisfactorily leanr colours, numbers, Frère Jacques :) etc. And they enjoy it very much.

But when we visit from France, my French DH will say to them, "Bonjour, comment ça va? Tu vas bien?" and. These same children look.....completely blank. If he says, "tu as bien dormi? Qu'est ce que tu veux faire ce matin?" they will run into another room in horror.

Just sayin'.

catgirl1976 do you actually have any experience of 4 year olds in school?

The majority of 4 and 5 year old children can't read when they start school and no one expects then to be able to do so. It would be useful if they could go to the toilet independently and get put on their own coat and shoes, listen and take turns but being unable to read isn't an issue at 4.

So true greythorne - the standard of MFL teaching in the UK is woeful at all levels. After twenty years of it I'm finally giving up and moving into SLT from Sep, just can't stand seeing any more keen, intelligent, motivated kids, many of them at an advantage due to family links etc., go backwards due to a toxic combination of low expectations, cr*p syllabi, lack of teaching of English grammar meaning they can't learn to build a sentence, the distraction of computer packages / IWB which are no more than games, and the final frustration when you have an intelligent child who eventually sees their MFL as 'my worst subject, I'm thick at it'. I've taught thousands of students who have enjoyed the fun aspects, but cannot retain the grammar they are taught, which is essential to do anything with the random vocab. they have. MFL Faculties in unis across the UK have been making redundancies for years due to low takeup, including Oxford & Cambridge, and the national figures on outcomes are disgraceful compared to other European countries. The 'initiative' of five years ago when primary teachers were expected to include (usually French) MFL was unreasonable and unworkable, and lead to children starting Year 7 usually thinking that they had been 'learning' French for several years, when in fact they could hardly count to ten, what does anyone expect a non-specialist to be able to do? Mr Gove is living in cloud cuckoo land if he thinks that forcing MFL onto students @ GCSE will improve things, we have just dealt with many parental complaints in my school due to this issue, the bottom line is, most students do not enjoy MFL and, statistically perform worst at it. The only way of dealing with this is to improve the teaching of English to focus on grammar, improve the (often dubious) quality of secondary MFL teachers, stop the MFL GCSE being ridiculously easy, and celebrate the joy of language learning as opposed to making it obligatory ... if they prefer Food Tech, let them eat cake !

You do have to use the language or lose it. when we left Bangkok, DD was speaking fluent Thai . By the time she started to learn German, she could barely remember any and now is only able to say hello, how are you, and thank you. She had nobody to practice with.

And now she remembers barely any German. Given her luck, the language she learns at her next school will be Spanish.

mrz no experience of 4 years olds in school - and only very limited experience of 4 years olds as a whole - hence why I am surprised by what I have learnt, but am certianly not disputing it. The few 4 years old I know can read but are obvioulsy not the norm. My mother does work in a nursery and says that a lot of children come without even basic skills like going to the loo, using a knife and fork or being able to take clothes on or off unaided which she finds much more shocking

That's interesting catgirl. Those skills are far more important. There was four years difference between my dd1 using the potty and learning to read and write. But in England, it seems that some parents expect their children to be able to write the word 'potty' before they can use it.

and think of all that dosh that has been wasted .poor kid,,let him enjoy life for while. it'll be hard enough when he is grown up.

No - I agree - I was saying when I spoke to my mum (who apart from being a mum has direct experience of 4 year olds through the voluntary work she does) she told me it was not the reading I should be worrying about so much as a lack of "basic" skills that she sees as becoming the norm

agree completely albertcamus

200 hours of french - equates to 2-3 weeks doesn't it?

That does not a Frenchman make.

Unless you have absolute immersion there isn't really much of a concern there really.

Are you a fluent french speaker yourself op? Or is it just the 1/2 hour lesson a week your dc is abosrbing the language in? Is he conversing with you or singing songs and throwing out random words and verses?

Just wondering, as my dc 6 has complete German immersion every other week ie. one weeks schooling in English and one weeks schooling in German (maths,science art, everything in German) and after 2-3 weeks....well there was no difference really, he could shout out a few things. 1 year later....(approx 700 hours in 26 weeks).. he is definitely getting there.

If he came back to the UK I really don't think he'd be that far ahead in German he'd be bored, but I expect he wouldn't have any problems. The only way to learn a language that to put yourself that far ahead is immersion.

I will 100% agree with losing a language by not speaking it regularly too, as I am forgetting so much Welsh it is making me quite despondant.

My husband is a fluent French speaker and I have it as an A level so I can sing the songs and play games etc with him and can speak it to a degree. DH has been better at this than me.

Can I just clarify that I am not expecting ds to be fluent!!! Or even miles ahead of his peers, some of you seem to have assumed this, very wrongly. However it stands to reason that when they start to have an hour lesson a week in class and he has already been doing that for 4 yrs that he will have covered the basics that they will then be covering. It is a French teacher from the local high school who will be coming in to take the lessons, for those who have asked.

I can see some of you think I am being unreasonable for being mildly concerned about this, and yes those of you who say anything could happen between now and then are right, it's something I can deal with should the issue arise. I posted this to see if anyone else had dealt with this situation and have had some good feedback re this.

Those of you who have slated me for encouraging my child to learn a language and attend a class he loves - well what can I say except I can only presume you are either jealous or ignorant.

As a non-parent (at the moment) it is really weird to see the underlying pissyness in some of the replies the OP has had. Why would this antagonise anyone? Is this what I have to look forward to as a parent, constant simmering rivalry and put-downs from strangers?