languages-am I an old fogey

[miggy]

DS1 (10/yr6) has had exams this week and I have helped him to revise. He has done French since yr1 and latin since yr4 with an equal amount of time devoted to each on a weekly basis. Latin is taught "the old fashioned way" ie this is a verb and this is how you conjugate it, plus sentence construction and learning great chunks of vocab. French is taught "the trendy way" topics such as saying hello, things in the classroom,my family- these seem to have been repeated ad nauseum since yr1. As a result, he can translate and construct fluent sentences in latin and given a dictionary can make a good go of translating text. In french, he can say phrases, like "I am 10" but has no idea which word means what, how to conjugate verbs etc-he couldnt even tell me one french verb! It doesnt matter in the great scheme of things, he is only 10, but it seems such a waste. Is the old fashioned way better? or perhaps his french teacher is rubbish. Just a bit sad as we visit France often but have yet to get to ancient Rome!

PS-just a disclaimer that this is in no way a teacher bashing thread-all teachers are fab-just some more so than others

Surprised that the schools splits the languages so distictly. Although we obviously did lots of "topics" in french and German we also had grammar and vocab tests every fortnight. Siblings are much younger than me and they are still being taught in the same way. Hate to say it, but I'd be concerned if he couldn't tell me word for word translations of simple phrases after 5 years!

Latin? wow I didnt know anyone did that anymore

(as someone who learned three langages without ever doing Latin!)

I agree, Miggy. I learned a lot of what I know about the construction of English from what I was taught in French lessons at school. I wasn't taught these basics in English!

ah but would he be able to have a conversation with caesar or just write him a long letter? guess his latin accent is probably pretty rubbish too (sorry, being a bit flippant!)

it's great that he's learning 2 languages and I hope he enjoys them both. Out of interest, which approach does your son prefer to language learning? There's a move back towards more traditional language learning (the formal presentation of grammar for example) in many schools but perhaps at your son's age the teachers want to concentrate on improving his conversational fluency - do you know what their philosophy is? It could be interesting to speak to the teacher to find out - I'd hope they had one otherwise I'd start to worry!

I learnt French with a lot of emphasis on grammar/vocab learning by lists and it suited me pretty well and I did well at school but was absolutely rubbish at ever having to speak to real live French people as I just didn't have the confidence. I probably would have benefitted from more speaking/role play practice. On the other hand, that was how I learnt German and it really drove me mad having to do role plays when I was so focussed on 'results' ie a good mark in exams, but when I went to Germany I did seem more capable of actually using it. Never liked the sound of it though so I never put much effort into learning more than I had to.

so I guess it depends on what you learn the language for, what kind of person you are, how old you are, how you feel about the language etc. Bit long winded and rambly there - sorry. Are you an old fogey? course not - don't worry, even if you were you'd be back in fashion again before you knew it - theories in education have a habit of recurring in slightly different guises and you can sit back and say 'I told you so' - just do it quick before the wind changes again

Like Morocco, I think there is a big difference from being able to speak a language in a classroom and being able it use it in the country in question, as it is really spoken. We learnt French at school the "traditional" way with lots of conjugating verbs etc and long lists of things learnt by heart. I was also taught LAtin and Italian that way and went on to do languages at university. Technically I spoke French and Italian very well. However when I got to my third year at uni I went to France for a year and found that what I spoke bore little resemblance to what "real" French people spoke. And despite having a degree in Italian, I have never spoken to an Italian person and don't think I would ever have been able to.

Dh is a Spanish speaker so I learnt that just by being around him, his friends and family. It's always been the language I'm most comfortable with and I've never sat down to study it. Granted, I have a solid grounding in very similar languages so that makes a huge difference grammar-wise etc. All I can say is that my children are picking up Spanish just by being around it and not by making it into any kind of lesson.

I think what I am probably trying to say is that you only really pick up languages properly when you are with the people that speak them, as ks says. So surely the best thing is to make children want to learn a language, experiment and feel proud that they can cope with situations when they are on holiday and so on. Not sit them down and make them repeat stuff which has little relevance to a language as it is spoken.

ks-he does both, which is odd as I remember being taught latin at school and being told that you never had to translate english to latin. He is mathematical and I suppose latin is very logical.
I see what you all say about actually speaking a language but dont you need a bit of knowledge about construction for that? even michel thomas talks about verbs and how to end them etc. (i know this having ploughed through the 8hr french course with that annoying pair of students)
All he can say in france is "hello" "goodbye" and "thankyou" really-slightly limited!
I think caesar would stand more chance of understanding him than napoleon!

He has been learning latin since year 4? What sort of school does he go to? Very impressed!

My answer is pretty simply that you do need grammer to learn a language well. Of course you do!

KS, I am not English. Was that a dig against my grammer? ,)

Maybe I went through a strange set of schools but I can remember having English grammar lessons (which make no difference to my mumsnet postings!)and I think that did help me. I speak 4 languages with a degree of fluency and am 'A' level standard in a further 3. Whilst my teenage addiction to MC Solaar improved my "street" French no end, all the slang in the world wouldn't have been much use if I didn't have a basic understanding of grammar and sentence structure.

just want to add another mn in favour of learning grammar! Learned several languages at school with a decent amount of grammar. OK, I could not speak English very well till I came over to the UK but at least I could read and understand it. As an adult I learned another foreign language without grammar. Got completely lost!!

Just to throw a spanner in the works, I entered Latin speaking competitions at school!

bobsmum, yes we had those and being a traditional RC school we had to learn the difference between pronunciation in classical Latin and Ecclesiastical Latin!

I struggled with French for a year at grammar school because it was taught "trendily" in the initial stages (anyone else inflicted with the bl**dy famille Bertillon?) but it all fell into place (as did my English grammar) when I started Latin in the second year. If it hadn't been for Latin I don't think my interest in modern languages would have developed in the same way.
I will move hell or high water to get my children into a school where Latin is taught and if I can't I will teach them myself.
I'm very impressed your ds is getting it at primary level Miggy.
If my circumstances change and I can cut down work hours, I might even look in to the Minimus Scheme and offer my services to ds' school.
Has anyone else done Minimus, or had any experience of it?

Message withdrawn

As a French native and former French teacher in the English system, I would like to stress how important grammar is in French. I did not want to go on teaching French the way it is being taught in England now, i.e the "trendy way" "let's have fun with the pupils and motivate them through games" - rubbish - the kids are not daft, they have fun for a while and then they lose motivation(generally after Year7) when they realise that it is really easy and they do not need to learn anything - they just know bits of french (j'habite a - je m'appelle) but have no ideas how to build a sentence. As you said, years after years after years after years they repeat the same thing "ad nauseum" ( the body - the family - booking in a hotel...) - sorry but I believe that at least for the 2 first years French should be learnt through grammar ( yes, sorry kids, learning can be boring sometimes, no everything is exciting) but then afterwards they can have fun and start making sense of the language.
A very disgruntled ex-french teacher.

IN DSs school they start learning Greek in the Nursery, but don't have lessons as such until reception. They concentrate more on the oral side than on the written and I don't think they really look at grammar and sentance structure until KS2. I think DS1 is doing OK, he understands a lot more than he can say and he can read almost as well as in English, although he doesn't always understand what the word means. The schools aim is for the kids to be bilingual by the end of Yr6 and they seem to be happy so far.

The school is Greek Orthodox, in case anyone wonders WHY they are learning Greek.