DS (Yr 5) really struggling with French

[Azure]

My DS has had French lessons at school since Yr 1 and is now in Yr 5 (at a different school). His homework last weekend was to learn 3 very basic questions and answers verbally (What is your name? How old are you? and How are you?, but in French of course) and he simply couldn't do it. I would tell him the phrase then immediately ask him what it was and he said he couldn't remember. I repeated and the same thing happened, and then he got really cross. It seems to be a massive block - he can remember plenty of other things and is not struggling in other subjects. He is borderline dyslexic, which probably doesn't help, but he's only learning French verbally - heaven help us when he has to write it as well. I'm at a loss about what to do. Does anyone have any ideas on how to get through to him? Any suggestions or thoughts appreciated.

Have the singing and dancing methods proved successful in teaching foreign languages? Were the old methods more successful? Ultimately it is how successful the methods are that should count. Experimenting with children's education may lead to state school children being at an even greater disadvantage to private school children. Would the OP's DS have fared better with a traditional approach? From the sound of it, he couldn't have fared much worse.

The trouble is that teaching of foreign languages to nursery/primary aged children is not really taught in any university anywhere - lots of European countries are experimenting with this, but there is little research and there are very few methods.

probably the problem was that he was not exposed to French often enough for it to stick and be in some way mastered. IMO a mixture of those two methods would work well for primary. Yes, singing etc and fun is great and motivational for primary. Singing, playing in French helps dc get the sound of the language in particular with French where the written word does not always seem to correspond exactly with how we perceive the spoken word to sound. I can see the value in that.

My mother said that they were taught French in a similar manner to Latin and acquired a high level of ability in reading/writing both languages. However, she felt that they lacked fluency in speech. NOwadays the emphasis seems to be more on the communicative aspect -speaking and understanding speech.

If the way Latin is taught works better for OP's ds, maybe it would help him to have something in that vein to work with from home to supplement what the school teaches. I saw recently that an American publisher of Latin material has a new French course based on their Latin approach. For the moment the publisher's name escapes me, will have a google.

Have no idea what it is like but sample pages online

memoria press

Galore Park

There's also Galore Park if a more traditional approach (+ CDs) appeals to ds. GP are not into "watering down" but it would be up to you and ds how much he tackled at each session IYSWIM. This is a programme for beginners from year 5 but they do have other series for younger learners IIRC.

however there is also plenty of material out there which lies between those two approaches and is less dry and structured perhaps than Memoria, GP but more so than the singing/dancing/fun school. You need to look around maybe.

I would recommend you look up Le manuel phonique on amazon and purchase this to help your child alongside what the teacher is doing. Another great book from France and used to teach French children how to make the sound-spelling link (in the same way they teach letters and sounds at Primary in English) is called Pas-a-Pas.

Hope this helps and don't give up.

SuziB

Just realised I hadn't said a thank-you for the interesting comments and recommendations here - much appreciated and I feel less despondent than I did before!

Interesting and worrying. I learned several languages the traditional way (I'm ancient) (not in the UK), including Latin. More recently I did a GSCE course in an Asian language. Although I did pass, I did not really have a clue about it. I would be able to memorise phrases alright, but if I wanted to say something slightly different it became impossible, eg just changing things from "I" to "we".

DC 8&10 are attending a French school and for the first 2 years it was taught as a spoken language only. We now have rote learning homework daily.
Write 5 times the verb to xxxx
Write 5 sentences using est-ce que
Tests every Tuesday and Friday
I was surprised it was taught this way but the French teachers believe drilling is the best way.
There's very little in the way of making the language. "fun" suorisingly DC just accept this is what they have to do.