Moving the kids to school in Paris to learn French

[Dvushka]

(Posting here b/c I'm not sure if this question is for this topic or specialised primary educ.)

I have 2 dds, one in Reception and the other in Year 2. We've always been big on having them learn languages - afterschool clubs in French and Chinese once a week - but we realise that they will never truly become fluent unless we immerse them.
So we're planning to go to Paris for at least 7 months if not the next year as well (we'll see how it goes). I've already found a place for Y2 dd at EAB Monceau in the immersion programme - they'll take her in January. My 4yr old would have to go to a local maternalle (if one is available). Has anyone done this before and/or have any knowledge of EAB or other schools in the 8th or 17th arr.? Do you think they will speak fluently after a year and a half and then keep it up after they move back to London? (They would at least have an afterschool French speaking nanny once or twice a week if not go to the Lycee.) It's a sacrifice for us but I just think it's less disruptive to move over now before the demands of KS2 really kick in and we start preparing for the move to secondary school.

But WHY would you do this? It is tough on them, you know! To throw them in at the deep end. Different language, different educational ethos. Then to change back after a year! If you HAD to go, fair enough.

But as most people on this thread have already said, the time period is not long enough for them to achieve fluency and they WILL lose it if access to the language is limited on your return.

My dd was 2 when we moved to Belgium. Just talking really. She started Maternelle at 2.5 and barely uttered a word for the first 6 months, though apparently she understoood. Then suddenly it kicked in. And as I said earlier, despite 4 years of FT education her vocabulary is still lacking!

You are, in effect, talking about totally disrupting their education and presumably breaking up friendships for the sake of some poncey experiment as you'd like them to speak french.

If you want to move to France, then fine. Go for it. The short term difficulties will be got over. But to move on the terms you have mentioned - well it's just madness, and will be unnecessarily hard on your kids.

Portofino - um, I know this is a contentious subject with the political factions involved but I think it's more prevalent now than it used to be. And I did deliberately refer to Bxls itself rather than Belgium as a whole.

Lots of immersion (as opposed to submersion) based nurseries/maternelles & primaires springing up everywhere.

And of course I am including parental languages in category of "being brought up with"

More than 65% of the dc in my dd's class are learning/speaking three languages - probably due to the definitely surreal make up of nationalities that constitutes Bxls nowadays

Dutch and French at school and a third (and often a fourth) language at home.

I am overseeing homework in Dutch and French atm, neither of which is my native languge, and no it's not easy - but with the school's help it is not impossible. Definitely worth it!

I learnt the Flemish word for vomit and bladder today

word(s)... that should have read

Stillcounting, I agree, but NOT at 2.5
If you are in a commune a facilites I believe the french speaking schools start nederlandais much earlier than the Brussels state schools. And at dd's school there is a lot of turkish and polish mother tongue, and some czech and spanish....Tis an interesting mix!

And as an aside, are you signing up for the Belgian MNetters Xmas meet up? See thread in Living Overseas....

We learnt the Dutch for big cut and plastic surgeon after a little local difficulty. Strangely this vocab isnt taught in the normal language lessons but needs must.

I know alsorts of dutch words but they tend to be obscure ones related to the telecoms industry. I'm sure I started a thread once about the dutch speaking presentation about man hole covers....

Sory this sounds a bit nuts and very over the top. It might take them 7 months to settle and then you'll be moving them back and they'll have to setle into a complete differnt school system.

[sorry for hi-jack Dvushka] Wishing you well in what you decide - I think you can't beat immersion in a native speaking environment - but agree with Portofino that I think you'll have to do it for longer than you anticipated to get the results you need. Good luck!

Suziehomemaker

Portofino owing to current overseas family issues that need an inordinate amount of time to sort out and the fact that I rather like my anonymity (Bxls being so small and all that) have decided the meet-ups aren't for right now - but thanks v. much for asking. For that same (latter) reason, won't give away my precise location , but there are three schools offering bilingual immersion within 20 mins of my house and 2 within 10 mins of my godchildren's house on other side of town. I agree they may not learn all two (or three) languages from 2.5 because to do immersion properly you have to do one first, then the other, but perfectly possible by end of primaire to be fluent and be able to write in two or three.

Yes, dd comes home with lots of Italian and Spanish "exclamatory phrases" learnt from playground!!

x posts Portofino

Have you considered Brussels as a location Dvushka? It sounds ideal

Dvushka are you sure that your DCs dont speak Russian? As has been mentioned, children are very pragmatic and use whatever seems to work.

Polish friends of ours were certain that their daughter spoke no Dutch. We visited them with our three DCs who automatically spoke with her in Dutch and she answered fluently much to her parents' surprise!

Is expanding your DCs' Russian an option? You may find that this is more achievable without disrupting home life to such an extent.

Maybe I am crazy but I don't get it? Would their futures really be adversly affected if they didn't speak more than one language? why do they have to be bilingual?

Okay

I speak as one who has been immersed in languages from an early age

And it's true that children will only attain real fluency if they are immersed at an early age. I know for sure that they will be entirely fluent after 18 months and particularly if you spend your time at home reading in French rather than English.

But it's also true that once you take them out of that environment they will lose their french at the rate of knots.

So I would say that you are entirely deluded if you think this will cause bilinguilism. It won't. You need to keep them in the french system until they are 18. And then, but only then. might they be genuinely bilingual.

Have you ever thought about why you might want them to be bilingual? My generation thought this was a cool thing, but frankly for my children? Waste of effort.

Q - what do you call someone who speaks many languages?
A - multilingual

Q - what do you call someone who speaks two languages?
A - bilingual

Q - what do you call someone who speaks one language?
A - British

My experience was that it added greater depth of understanding for my DCs. My DD1 is able to use her Dutch to help her with French & German. With luck she will finish school with GCSEs in three languages, and possibly A levels in two which will nicely balance the sciences.

I am sure that is a great balance but is it any more beneficial than having GCSEs A levels in other subjects? Will it make her hugely more employable or sought after? I did French, Spanish and Latin at school and I honestly don't think they have been of much benefit to me at all.

DD1 is considering university in NL where French and or German is necessary as well as Dutch and English.

Many universities appreciate that there is a fair bit of academic rigour going into learning languages which can be missing in other subjects. Basically, learning languages is difficult as all on this thread have said but IMO ultimately very worthwhile. I am sure that I have heard far more people regret that they didnt learn languages when young than I have heard people regret dropping history or geography (with due apologies to all history and geography teachers).

I don't get this (ok i had some wine)

Are you moving because of work or just for making dd learn french? Have you got family there, jobs? Income?

Never mind children settling down - i had to when i was growing up and my children had to aswell so i know from experience that children settle easily etc but we had a reason for doing this.

Tbh i would much prefer it if you said 'we fancy living in Paris for while' but 'we are doing it for dd' thats huge pressure. Imagine telling her when she is older what a martyr you have been .

Quattro though, learning a language is more than about just learning the words.

It's about insight in to other cultures, mindsets, traditions, etc - all of which come in very handy whatever sphere of work you enter or wherever you live.

Sorry - but someone who is French does not think or act the same as someone who is English.

Discovering all of that is the real joy of it -

Quattro. you raise a good point. I never aspired to have a bilingual child. We moved to Belgium and put her in the nearest school which happened to be french speaking. We moved to Flanders 2 years ago and discussed moving her to the dutch system.

As a British family though, we are kind of pre-disposed to think that french is a much more common, and useful language. So we discussed it and left her where she is.

Now she is happy and doing well at school but in reality, she would have many more opportunities in the Dutch system. And to ensure she goes to a decent secondary school, at some point we will have to move back to Brussels. We made a bad choice really.

To be honest, I think you should concentrate on the Russian. They have a fluent parent who uses Russian to them all the time (and can continue to do so indefinitely), they have been to Russian nursery and Saturday Russian school, and they already understand it. OK, so they won't speak it at the moment, but that's been the case at this age with all but one bilingual child I've known -- insisting in speaking in only one language even when understanding the other language perfectly. They've all spoken both languages absolutely fine when they get older.

Trying to make them fluent in French as well just seems counter-productive. They are already bilingual, or well on their way to becoming bilingual, in a language that they can keep up for the rest of their lives. You're proposing putting your whole family through what you yourself describe as a "sacrifice" so that they have a chance of starting to become vaguely fluent in French before being moved back to an Anglophone environment where they will struggle to keep up their French. If you could relocate long-term to France, great -- but if you have a hard stop of 18 months on your time there, then I don't think they'll reap any long-term linguistic benefits.

If you are thinking of sending them to the Lycee later, then why not send them now ? The older one at least.

I went to the Lycee in London when I was 4 and stayed until I was 10. Did my secondary education in the English state system. Neither of my parents are French, and we did not speak French at home. We also lived in Holland for a year, and I went to the French Lycee in The Hague.

I left the Lycee age 10 in 1980 and have not used French on a regular basis since I was 10 apart from holidays, but I can still understand most of what I read and hear and can keep up a conversation (albeit with the vocabluary of a 10 year old!). My written French is pretty poor though. My little sister also went to the Lycee for the same time as me, carried on with French through secondary school, cruised through A Level French and has lived and worked in France (and in French) since she left school.

I think the point I am trying to make, is that you may not need to up sticks so drastically to acheive your goals.

"sacrifice" was too strong a word to use. I see everyone is picking up on that. It is an 'effort' for us but one we're willing to do whether it be this year or next. It's a move that we think would be interesting/exciting for the entire family. Our families are global so I am convinced of the need to know more than just English, thanks. French is just more commonly taught in the UK. If we were in the US, we would pursue Spanish. They do speak some basic Russian and we will always try to keep that up but it's much more difficult to immerse them in Russian than French right now.

Am I the only person who thinks this actually sounds rather nice? Living in another country could be great fun. Presumably if you are thinking of doing this it is because you actually rather like the thought. WHy not indulge yourselves? Children can enjoy experiencing different languages and cultures. Learning a bit of another language is not wasted even if you do not become an absolutely totally balanced bilingual.

And I think my brother and I are proof that even a modest or limited immersion can lead to good results if it fires a lifelong interest in languages. My mum started teaching me German when I was 5 and English when I was 6. Of course I did not become totally bilingual overnight to such an extent that I never had to do any further work to keep it up. But I had a very very strong foundation for when I did go on to do more learning. I think I could say that I am now bilingual in English. And though I never did much about my German, I can still enjoy German literature and read German articles for work, though I admit I do not actually speak the language. That doesn't mean it's wasted. My brother otoh moved on to living in Germany for a while as a young adult and becoming fully bilingual. He has lectured at a German university, he publishes in German and people do not usually pick up on the fact that he is not a native speaker.

We both got the idea that languages are fun from an early age. My brother speaks about a dozen languages well enough to get along, but can probably read 20 or more well enough to use them for work purposes: it's an enormous career advantage.

Some families just are linguistically minded. It is no more snobby or stuck up to indulge this than for a horsey family to buy their 4yo a pony or for a sailing family to take the toddler out sailing.

Absolutely, going and living in France for 7-18 sounds like fun and a good experience. But doing it in the expectation that small children will continue to be fluent in French (as opposed to have an interest in languages, which they clearly already do) when they get back seems unrealistic. I think someone posting "We plan to do this for the experience, and if it gives the children's long-term grasp of French a boost then that's a bonus" would have got a very different response.

I wonder why you think it is such a waste of time to learn other languages, Quattrocento. I know many people in the financial world and the one thing they all say makes getting another job very difficult indeed is being a monolingual English speaker.