What do your bilingual kids (english & whatever) do during their english lessons?

[canella]

we're in Germany - only been here 18 months. dd (9) is totally bilingual german/english and in the last school year started havign english lessons in her timetable. Obviously this is at too basic a level for her (they were counting to 20 this week).

Last year the teacher said she was best off just reading a book or doing her homework but this year the teacher has changed and she insists dd takes part in the class.

we're not happy with this and we've spoken to the head today (phoned to speak to the teacher but she wasnt there and it was the head who answered the phone!didnt plan to take it to the head at the mo!!) - she hadnt thought what dd should do (even tho she knew dd was bilingual!!) but said her and the teacher would have a think about it! but i have 2 other dc who will also go thro the school and another bilingual family have 4 dc so the school need to make a plan for all these kids! (we obviously live in the sticks - i imagine bigger cities would have more bilingual families!)

so what do the rest of your dc do in their english lessons - is it worth me trying to buy some workbooks from the UK for her to do during the lessons?

any advice welcome!

Admylin
I would find that incredibly annoying. A friend of mine had the same problem but she thought that sometimes the children were using grammar and expressions that the teacher did not know herself. Which was whynshe refused to change the grade, as she was embarrassed.

Yes, incredibly annoying indeed! We just have to make sure they learn exactly what has been going on in class and they manage OK.

When I see the standard of language teaching I'm not too worried to be honest. Ds has had French for 1 year and 3 months - and he's learning phrases and grammar that would get him through a GCSE in the UK right now. They teach to a high standard. The texts they have to read in English are getting more and more advanced too.

thanks for all the thought provoking replies - thats why i posted the thread to make me think beyond my own views!

Natation - i just wasnt happy that the school hadnt even thought it thro that it might be beyond boring for my 9 yr old dd who had lived in the UK until 18 months ago to spend 2 lessons a week counting to 20. I didnt make any fuss last year when the teacher let her read a book for during the english lessons! And i am happy to provide her with work to do myself - I just want the school to have thought about it! and to answer your point - if there were native spanish/french/german speakers in a UK school i wouldnt be expecting them to be joining in the class counting to 20 in spanish or whatever! i would imagine they were reading a book or not doing the lesson at all!

Frakkinnakkered - i think thats how i feel - i just want her to get something out of the class! and even reading her own book is still getting something! but doubt she's causing trouble cause she's bored! she's just coming home and moaning about it all the time! will have a look for those grammer sheets on the web - like i said in the OP i'm happy to provide her with something to do if the teachers dont have the provision to do so!

admylin - yeah she's in the 4th class and hopefully going to the gymansium next year (fingers crossed!). I'm not desperate to push her during these lessons altho i would like her to be stretched a bit!i think she needs to work on her english vocab and grammer but we can do that at home - i just dont want her being so mindnumbingly bored twice a week(her words!!) - why cant she just read a book in the corner! or i can provide work for her to do if they'll allow that!

thats shocking that the teachers would mark the children down for using the correct grammer just because its not in their textbooks! its such rigidity from a teacher that they cant see that both sentences are ok - bonsoir is right - its a definite disincentive to maintaining another language!

Non-native teachers of MFL just don't have the linguistic experience, in the majority of cases, to go beyond the rules.

The other day DSS1 had a query about the difference between the expressions "my fellow pupils" and "my class mates". His teacher thought they were synonymous...

Prepare yourself to experience plenty of 'rigidity from a teacher' over in Germany!

The main thing is that you know that's what it is and don't take it to heart. I'm saying that because it happened to ds the first year he had English in Gymnasium, we couldn't believe it and it got him down because of our reaction too. The system is tough and being a native speaker doesn't guaruntee good grades without some effort. This year, we just have a laugh at it and brush it off.

Dd is only in her second year of elementary so at the moment I'm not giving it much thought. They do 2 hrs of English a week. The teacher did ask me at the first parents' meeting what I thought would be best for her, whether she should be given something different to do etc, but as writing in English was something she was new to (at least last year) I said to let her carry on with the rest of the class.

If we are still here (God forbid) by the time she gets to high school, then as most of that is literature based, again, it won't be as if she is learning nothing, she'll be studying Eng Lit in depth, and hopefully, finding it easier to write about than her peers!

The one thing that I've started to think about is the fact that, effectively, she isn't learning a foreign language, unlike other children. I do want her to have that as well, so might end up looking for a French class for her idc.

The issues raised on this thread are the reason I intend to send DD only to schools that have a "bilingual English" stream for native English speakers. Fortunately in Paris there are quite a few!

Hey Bonsoir, you don't know of any website or books I could get hold of which gives me a run down of the syllabus requirements for the BAC (LV1/LV2 English elements, for scientific and all the others) do you???? ( I am rewriting course materials for next summer, our students are 2nd/1er and a few terminales- in every sense )

hijack as much as you like bucharest!!

Bonsoir - we're in deepest, rural Germany and dd is in a school of just over 200 pupils of which there are only 2 blingual english/german children (and the other one is in the 1st class!!)! so you can see why the school havent thought too much about it!

do understand the rigidity already - dd was asked to read out the words to "if you're happy and you know it clap your hands" and was told in no uncertain terms that it wasnt "Happy" but "heppy" she should be saying! and she's a nice kid so didnt want to argue!! oh the german school system!! maybe we should resurrect the old thread!

That heppy thing drives me mad, canella - where on earth do Germans/Austrians get the idea that any English word with an a in it needs to be pronounced as if it had an umlaut? I'm trying to stamp it out in DD1's class but with only limited success; I think the children have been exposed to too much in the way of wrong pronunciation already. Have just remembered that Halloween is coming up so I'll soon have to put up with hearing about Helloween everywhere (even the DC pronounce it like that) - maybe it would be a good idea to teach the class how to pronounce it "properly" in that weeks's lesson!

Thanks for starting this thread Canella. Dd will be starting English lessons next year, so it´s given me a bit of time to think about the best approach.
I can sympathise with your dd about the pronunciation. During one of my German lessons we had to read a text with lots of English words like computer and laptop. I was asked to read it aloud so that the others could hear the correct pronunciation and when I was finished was told I was wrong. Apparently I shouldn´t be saying "laptop," but "leptup."

oh glad its not just me!! my ds's are really bad for it!!

if i hear them say "petrick" from Spongebob one more time!!

anyway back to school stuff! i emailed one of the teachers at my dd's school in the UK and she emailed me back 5 mins ago with some info!

i asked for her specific stuff with regard to my dd being 9 and i've not looked at it but here is the info

• tree tops comprehension books
• google coxhoe durham - click on curriculum links
• woodlands junior school kent
• www.primaryteachingresources.co.uk

look forward to having a look at this info later - gutted i have to go out now!

I can add: heppy, cleb, regby and kerry (curry) as well as femily to the list!

Bucharest - not offhand but I'll grab DSS1's English text book when I see him and give you the reference.

Thankyou!

One big thing EMT children in overseas systems should focus on (IMO) is the standard of creative writing and debate (in preparation for academic writing) required in the UK which you're never really going to get a) as an EFL student and b) in systems which don't value those skills as much.

I've just finished a paper the level English children are ideally expected to the reach in their SATS at 10/11 and how to encourage these skills in 10/11 year old EFL students. They're are expected to have a reasoned argument with linking and contrasting phrases (firstly, secondly, thirdly, in addition, on one hand, on the other hand, however), present a range of viewpoints (some people say/believe, others say/believe), structure an argument for and against and make a conclusion (to sum up etc), make logical progressions between points and explain their reasoning (if we did this, then that, which means...) and even use a range of literary devices like rhetorical questions to get the 'top' marks. Vocabulary needs to be varied with plenty of synonyms too. Obviously that's what they're aiming for but presumably teachers are aiding and abetting them by exposing them to the language and the structures and giving them feedback on their work.

I teach 18-24 year olds at the university here who can't do that in French, let alone English.

Apparently EFL teachers should encourage students to express their opinions, weigh up other's opinions, do mini-presentations on things so they practice introduction/enumeration/conclusion and encourage debate and discussion from as early as possible. I don't think you get that in many educational systems in an english class!

frakkin - I've been helping the 17 year old son of a French friend with his UCAS personal statement. Said son expects to get Mention Très Bien in his baccalauréat Franco-Allemand, speaks four languages fluently, has a wealth of interesting life experiences etc etc. über bien sous tous rapports.

Can he write an essay about himself and why he wants to read the subject he does?

Grrrrr.

But you know what's really ironic? He'd probably be able to give you quotes from 50 philosophers, authors and 'great minds' on why that subject is a good thing to study.

I did a class debate today, where students are expected to give THEIR OWN OPINION having read a press file on a given topic. Can they do that? Can they hell. But they can quote bee-yoo-ti-fully....

DD was starting to read/write in English last year at home, but I have laid off for the moment as she is learning the basics in French at school and confuses the letter sounds.

i in French = e in English
a in French = r in English

As she knows the phonics sounds as well as the letter names in English this was mucking up her dictee. I am going to let her get the French alphabet clear in her mind first then resume.....

Portofino - DD's school is adamant that bilingual children need to learn to read in sequence ie they teach reading in French in first year of primary, English in second year of primary.

DD learned her English letters and sounds in the 18 months preceding her first year of primary (thank you a Parisian MNer ) and is now learning her French ones and is thankfully not confused.

frakkin - you are absolutely right, and he has done some very impressive reading in the original (Marx in German, Rousseau in French, Keynes in English etc). Ho hum.

DD learnt hers too and has been reading the ORT books.

But they are starting dictee and if she is asked to write down "ee" (spoken sound) that is "i" in french, but she thinks of "e" in English. Hence a bit of confusion and hence me sticking purely to french letter sounds for the time being. She gets upset if she makes too many mistakes.

They don't use phonics here but letter and word recognition in conjunction.

Is the méthode semi-globale? Most French state schools seem to do this here too, though at DD's school they do a phonetic method which apparently gets much better results with children whose native language is not French.

Our children's Brussels school teaches French writing phonetically,they learn all the different ways of writing each sound, French is far easier to write from the oral form than English thankfully.

I have a friend with Swedish/English/French speaking children (mum/dad/school). They have been taught to read and write at a French language school. They have had a little bit of coaching in written Swedish from the grandparents each Summer. They've had no formal teaching at all in English. But with English being such a global language, the 12 year old writes very impressive English, I think he'd put it down to many hours of writing on Facebook!

Our youngest is a year behind Portofinos. I can see her having the same confusion at this time next year, with 2 different sets of writing rules from phonetics to written letters and letter patterns. At the moment, the French writing taught at school is at a very basic level, she is teaching herself more complicated things in English. But what do I do next year if if interferes with primaire teaching? I can see me having to ban her from Nick Jr and Cbeebies for a whiles, she loves the games which spell words on there !!!!!

Bonsoir, that sounds familiar. They are using hand signals too which is quite entertaining especially as they are starting to join 2 letters together....A is for nazi salute... I am learning too!