Foreign language learning

[Hottoddy1]

This might come across as ultimate pushy parent but anyway......
I would really like my kids to get fluency in a modern foreign language and it seems like the younger they start the better. I have a smattering of French and Spanish and have been trying to improve both intermittently for a few years. My kids are 2 and 4 and I’m hoping to get someone in to teach them mainly the 4 year old once a week in an age appropriate way keeping it fun etc I’ve been doing a little bit of French with her already and she seems to enjoy it, numbers, colours etc
My question is, I’ve found out she will do French at primary school when she goes. Is this a bad idea that is likely to make her bored in her French lessons? I could do Spanish instead but my French is a bit better so I thought we could focus on that one. Also has anyone done similar? How did it work? I know there are toddler language classes but although we are in a city the timing and locations don’t work for us so I’m hoping to DIY.

My DD did French and Italian at university and didn’t do any languages until secondary school at 11. Every child there had done French at prep school but they were not particularly good and DD was pretty much top by Y8 having overtaken many of the others. Her French teacher noted she was a linguist in y8. If I had known she might be good at languages, I would have tried to find a class much earlier. She would have loved it.

If you speak French, speak it to her. A bit of teaching won’t do much if she’s not a natural but someone I know taught her DDs German from birth (she was German and a German teacher) and they were totally bilingual at primary school (they were also ultra bright). You can walk into any university with this skill if your academics are good enough! So I would do it, but I’d speak at home too.

to be honest, IME the French lessons at junior school will be so bad as to be negligible in terms of her 'getting bored'. They just do the same stuff over and over again.(colours, numbers etc)

There is nothing like constant exposure. Language is like.a muscle, it needs training everyday.

Watch films in these languages, play the radio in the mornings, tutoring, books and of course as many holidays in these countries as possible.

Making an effort twice a week for a year is useless.

More important if the children don't buy into it you're wasting your time.

Full disclosure: I've had 30 years in the languages field, run a company (speaklikeanative.com) that's all about a fun, stress free way of learning languages for primary schools and am bringing up two bilingual kids.

The key is time. Enough exposure to another language and any child will acquire (rather than learn) it. The problem is that most primary school children get about 40 minutes exposure a week... and it's often boring!

This is enough to put anyone off. And then the labelling starts... "I'm bad at languages" etc.

This is why we set up our method based on games, tasks and activities so that children get the exposure without getting bored. It takes time. It really does. But they'll get the rewards in the future.

And the British Council latest report recommends today's children in the UK will need to be fluent in at least one of the following: Spanish, French, German, Mandarin, Arabic. You chose! They're all great.

Feel free to get in touch for more info or help. This is an obsession for me!!!