to ask for bilingual DC to do something else during French lessons?

[StarlingBirdsong]

DC in question is year 2, age 6. We are a bilingual family (French/English). DC has come home saying they've had french lessons, this is the second week so looks like its going to be a regular thing one afternoon a week.

DC is complaining that he bored (understandable) and that the teacher says some of it wrong (it's not a native french speaker so the 'r' letter in particular is likely not to sound correct to him).

WIBU to ask that DC is either set a different task, or that i can send him in with a book and he can do quiet reading for this lesson? (He is a free reader and would sit in silence with his book, no issue).

I'm worried that his boredom will soon turn into disruptive behaviour - and i wouldn't blame him, they are literally learning the basics 'bonjour, comment ca va' etc - DC is fluent!

DO i approach his class teacher? or the actual french teacher?

I think it would be worth getting the French teacher to give him a French work book to write in or something. I know someone who came back from 3 years in France bilingual and the school allowed her to skip French lessons and just sit the exam at the end of the year. However, she did poorly in the exam as no one had actually checked whether she could get all the written grammar and so on correct. I think it would be worth asking for him to be still given French work, but just at a higher level, even a French book to read at least.

Arranged get over yourself. It is his problem if he is bored, and his mum's as she cares - and she is quite rightly pondering solutions (though the teacher should have noticed in theory, it is presumably very early in the term and if French is one lesson a week she can be forgiven for not catching on if nothing has been said and he is just acting bored - no normal child will show off their mother tongue when being taught basic words in a class of English kids by someone with an English accent at age 6 so she may not have heard him speak conversational French).

I speak as a parent of fully bilingual kids - non native, non specialist teachers at primary level cannot stretch native speaker children and most children are OK with that, they just need to be given an alternative that suits them. My DD lived the celebrity status of helping and loved me coming in to teach the odd class, maybe twice a year. At secondary she's happy English is an easy skive so far as she has to work hard in a couple of other subjects which come less naturally than languages, but will end up with3 "foreign" languages at school next year so it's all good that one isn't "foreign" to her.

Yes I find that argument bizarre:

"my son has to sit bored out of his mind, so yours should should to"

Not on my watch!

arranged I don't think he's gifted, just has very specific interests!

starling my dad always said only boring people are bored and I'm never bored. Ok hardly ever :-) but I can find interest in everything and my ds is the same. He loves numbers and will love going over it all especially if any of his friends are interested too. Or maybe he'll be bored and misbehave but either way the teacher will know better than I do the best way to deal with it.

Letting a child be a helper is differentiation btw - try explaining why we say:

The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog

Not

The brown quick fix over jumped the dog lazy

You have to engage your brain to explain it, so it is more challenging than just reading and learning the sentence.

monkey left to his own devices my DC are never bored either - he would choose to read a book, or make something from cardboard and a whole roll of sellotape (current favourite pasttime) but please explain how he could not be bored when told to sit still and listen to stuff he knows for half an hour? wouldnt you be bored if you had to sit and repeat the numbers 1-10 or the colours of the rainbow in your native language for half an hour?!

Letting a child act as helper teaches a lot more than "kindness" - the child practices speaking in front of a group, the art of explaining things they "just know", and opens their mind to empathise with people struggling with things that come naturally to them. DD prepared presentations for the class and all sorts - definitely extension material for her, not remotely using her as "slave labour".

DD prepared presentations for the class and all sorts - definitely extension material for her, not remotely using her as "slave labour". Exactly. There has to be a creative solution to this problem.

Well said 5more. That's what I was trying to say.
And it teaches them confidence/self belief.

If he is only in Year 2 he could do something else instead of French if you prefer as Languages are not compulsory in Primary until KS2.

Is his teacher the class teacher or a specialist (not that you can't be both I know - not here to offend anyone)?

I go in to a primary school for two afternoons to deliver the FL (French in my case) to Years 3-6. It takes a while for me to get all the details about the new (to me) children in Year 3 so it may be that for the first lesson or two, if it is a visiting teacher like I am, she might not have realised that she has a native speaker in the class. I know you might think it should be obvious, but if he is just joining in and not saying extra phrases etc she genuinely might not realise at first. I would certainly expect the class teacher to know about it though - and to inform me.

In this sort of situation I would certainly contact parents to ask what they would prefer and then have a think about what I could offer - whether extra reading/writing practice, working as an assistant - preparing presentations - whatever suited best, but I would have to be informed first.

situated that is hilarious!

I understand what people are saying about helping, that explaining extends learning, blooms taxonomy, etc etc.
But these are y2 kids. They will be learning greetings, my name is... pets, family members and so on. The most complex sentence they make will probably be "I have a dog" and teaching will most likely be whole class with choral repetition at this stage. Maybe some worksheets with word/pictures to match. There won't be a heck of a lot to explain at this stage.

its worth finding out how often these lessons will actually happen as well, at ours they are pretty irregular and about 30 mins a week. they also change languages - eg learn greetings in a few. kids do have to put up with a bit of boredom. of course, make sure at the same time that they do know he is bilingual. there is no need to worry about this affecting his pronunciation though as that wont happen. he gets enough exposure at home and is bilingual.

I spoke to DS's class teacher (the french teacher was not about). DS has mentioned he spoke french but hadn't made it clear to the teacher he was actually fully bilingual. The teacher seemed a bit unsure, kept saying 'so he can say sentences?' I eventually made it clear that he is fully conversational with DH at home.

The upshot is, the teacher is going to speak with the french teacher and see if they can organised some reading and writing activities for him as this is behind his spoken (due to the minority language speaker not being the at home parent we were advised by other bilingual friends to let him get confident with written and read english before bringing in the french so he has only been learning to read and write french for a short time comparitively).

So i feel much happier that they now understand his situation and hopefully will be tailoring the teaching to meet his needs which is great.

Thanks for the advice!

Great result op X

kept saying 'so he can say sentences?'

Great news for DS, and félicitations pour ta persévérance!

Great result!

I remember my daughter correcting my English, I am Australian and we were living in Dublin at the time. I wasn't saying my "R's" properly. I still can't pronounce them (smile)