French immersion for six months

[Florine]

Does anyone have any experience of sending their nine year old to a French speaking school just for six months. She doesn't speak French at home but will be staying with our french family. How proficient in the language is she likely to become with six months immersion in the language? Is this likely to help her become more secure in the language later on. Thank you sharing your experience.

OP, if read the thread on Primary Education re schools offering German & Russian you will see that language teaching is fairly basic in the UK.
Of course your dd will benefit from 6 months of immersion age 9 but whatever secondary school she goes to at age 11 -state or private - she will start again on the basics with the rest of the class.
The benefit of immersion would be seen if she continues with french out of school.

I think you might get a good response if you post this question under 'Living Overseas' (in Home & Garden). Lots of people there have experiencing of moving their DC over to France aged nine or so and will be able to tell you how far they progressed in what length of time.. .

Fwiw (and it depends on the individual child and their aptitude for languages) but it takes about a year of immersion for a nine year old to become reasonably proficient at French. However, the French education system is very different to that of the UK, and I think the disruption for one year only might prove quite challenging. Also, children are like sponges and soak up language quickly, but equally, they lose it rapidly when it is not maintained. So I would be worried about the effectiveness of this plan. I can see the advantages of sending a pre-schooler to a French nursery for a year, but a nine year old for a six-month stint is a very different prospect.

Good luck though because any extra effort that goes in to language learning at an early age is always beneficial! I'm just not sure this is quite the right plan!

You may find it not long enough to pick up much more than playground speak. Most kids I've known to be put in local schools abroad take a while to settle and feel included, then start to learn. Certainly not enough time to boost language learning for secondary unless you are native speakers and keep it up at home. Gcse mfl expectations tend to be less colloquial and more textbook grammar and vocab.

Are you looking at En Famille?

Ah no. It’s your own family.

Immersion does work well, and six months will bring her on well provided she’s going somewhere that people will be very chatty. But it’s quite hard work keeping languages up afterwards. Are you able to do that?

It really depends what you want as an outcome, I think.

The teaching of MFL is so incredibly fucked up in this country I despair. I know of youngsters who have an A* GCSE in French but who cannot carry on even the most basic conversation.

On the other hand I know others who have been bilingual their whole lives, but who have done quite badly in language GCSE's.

Personally, I think that learning another language is always a good thing, and your DD will certainly get off too a good start with a six month immersion, especially in a family setting. She can work at keeping it up with internet resources and listening to French tv and radio.

Once you have learned one, it does make it easier to learn others, but this may not be where your DDs interests lie in future.

On the downside, I suspect that she will find learning French in school later incredibly boring if she does become quite a proficient speaker.

I think it could work quite well as long as the language is kept up afterwards. So this would be a school in France, or a French school in the Uk? Huge difference. And would she be staying with A French family or YOUR French family? 6 months is a long time to be away from your parents.

My DDs went to international schools and we experienced a lot of English kids coming here and having to pick up the local language. The timeframe varies hugely though, partly natural ability, partly the family's attitude (are they open to that language or a bit hostile to it). 6 months should be enough to get a solid grounding enough to have conversations, but it's tough at the start just being thrown into a school in a language you can't understand.

DD went to France on an exchange for 3 months when she was 15/16, and it changed her life, as she then went on to do a French A-Level equivalent and then studied in France, and subsequently in a country where French is a common lingua Franca. It was a family exchange we arranged ourselves - but it was crucially her idea. She spent the first month understanding nothing (despite 4 years of school French) then something went 'ping ' and she started interacting in her lycee.

My friend went to France for 6 months when she was 10.
She did a degree in French, has a French partner and works for a French marketing company. They speak French all the time at home (she has 2 kids with her partner). It’s made a massive difference to her life, especially from the pronunciation point of view which is near-native standard.

You want to send your 9 year old to live with relatives for 6 months?
Her French will be awesome but her emotional well-being will be fucked.

She will learn a lot, but as others have said she will need to keep using it. She will lose what she's learnt really quickly otherwise.

Why would her emotional well being be fucked?

You don't think a 9 year old would be affected by leaving her parents and living with other people in another country for 6 months?

Not necessarily. She would be back regularly, could phone everyday if she wanted etc. I’d think it would be an amazing opportunity. Depends on the child I suppose.

I don't know many securely attached 9 year olds who would be ok with this.
Still, as long as her French is good right?

Sounds like a great opportunity for the right child.

Ds has been doing French since he was 3 so slightly different, but age 13 the whole of his school year group goto France for a term and come back pretty much fluent. It gives them a myriad of other skills too and incredible levels of independence.

That said, no way in hell would I be sending my 9 year old anywhere without me for 6 months! I’d rather Ds only spoke English than away from me for so long!

Why put your 9 year old through this?

I took a 3-month intensive Spanish course, in Spain, when I was 35. Couldn't speak a word before I went and at the end, could speak and write like a native. Most of the people on the course were 17/18 year old kids who lived with host families. I lived on my own in an apartment in the middle of a residential part of Seville so had to speak Spanish just to get by.

No way would I send one of my kids away so young to do this when so many opportunities exist once they are older and can decide for themselves whether they have an interest in doing so.