Handwriting when writing in English for bilingual (Eng/Fr) children in French schools.

[lummox]

I've just noticed that ds1 (6) writes in capitals when writing in English at home. When writing in French he uses the attache that they are taught at school and his handwriting is fine.

I was wondering what other bilingual children do in France when writing in English? And whether the bilingual schools get the children to use French attache when writing in English?

We are trying to encourage more writing in English at home at the moment (children currently at a francophone only school but likely to move to a bilingual school) and I'm not sure whether to just tell him to write English using his French handwriting, or to encourage him to find his own English hanwriting.

Grateful for any thoughts.

Hmmmm, it is a puzzle, isn't it?

We started doing letters at home through the medium of English before maternelle, simple orint English style letters, lower case.

Then, I was amazed that at Dd's franco-francais (sous contrat) school, they started by teaching upper case.

We continued with printed lower case then did upper case.

Now Dd (GS) has started the absolutely bonkers and illegible French cursive lower case, which she struggles withh massively but probably not because she is used to English printed letters but because French cursive is just so damned curly wurly complicated.

Given the chance, she reverts to English print letters when writing carss or doing little things at home with us. I am trying to push the French cursive as that's what she struggles with and have bought all the white board / wipe clean exercise books for her to practice ( Boscher Method ).

All that to say that I think if your Dd has got the French cursive right, it should be pretty easy to adapt that to an English model of handwriting, which I do think is useful as I know French handwriting really is pretty unreadable to me lots of Anglos.

My children use attache for both languages - it's just become their style of handwriting now.

Sometimes DC2(7) uses a mixture of upper case and attache but I think that's a common error.

That's really interesting - thank you both.

Greythorne - ds1 found attache hard at the start and I think that is when he started writing English in capitals and he just hasn't stopped. I expect that he will end up writing English in attache like chickflit's children.

But I would love it if he could adapt to a slightly less, erm, flowery script for writing English.

Our children educated in French just use the same script in English. Two of them had already learned to write in English cursive, took only a couple of weeks to learn French cursive, after which they then started writing English the same way, I didn't force it upon them, it just happened.

I would go with whichever way your school teaches handwriting and certainly not encourage a different way of writing for another language. The school I work at has just started bilingual French-English classes, the children are learning to write French and English using English cursive rules, simply because further up the school, the majority language is currently English and it's an English/Welsh national curriculum based school, if it were a Belgian French curriciulum, I'm sure the school would have chosen French cursive instead of English.

Our youngest is currently learning to write in French, I must say that the class is taught to read and write using a book which deliberately contains cursive and printed letters, so that the children recognise that these letters are the same, just in different styles.

DD2 was taught cursive from the start in Belgium - probably at the school you work at, Natation. It worked well, and she had really nice handwriting. Went back to UK, to local primary school, and they told her she had to print - they didn't start cursive until year 3. I asked if she could carry on with what she had been doing for two years, and was told no - she had to learn to print first. She left shortly after this and her writing is a real mess - a mixture of print and cursive, and she has had to put in a huge effort to make it look decent. She is now using American cursive, and when she remembers to use it and not revert to print, it looks great. It was really unhelpful to her to be made to use a different sort of writing for a year, and then go back to what she had originally been taught.

Good grief, Mrs Schadenfreude, your daughter's school sounds completely ridiculous.

I guess that confirms natation's point. I was only daydreaming really about the possibility of ds1 developing two different handwriting styles to go with the two languages.

Would you just let your child carry on using capitals if they wanted to when writing English at home?

Lummox, is your ds learning to write with a pen or pencil? In our youngest daughter's class, equivalent of CP, the children have started with pencils and do lots of practise with writing sheets with the lines, the teacher says the children will move to a fountain pen during the school year, with the timing depending on their personal progress, everyone will start CE1 with fountain pens.

We haven't had any discussion of pen/pencil. Ds1 is in CE1 (although a calendar year younger as he skipped GS) and uses biro type pens at school and whatever he has to hand for homework.

I can't imagine the mess that he would make with a fountain pen. Very impressed that 6/7 year olds can manage that.

Lummox, DS used to do exactly the same thing when he was a similar age to your DS. He is was a year ahead. He now uses French cursive most of the time for English too. I haven't tried to teach him to write in any other way but I write in print when I am writing for him to read as it's the only way I write legibly enough for him to read and as a result he sometimes prints English if he only has the odd word to write. For long sentences in English he uses French cursive.

When you say that you write in print, do you mean capitals? I find myself doing that so that he understands but am wondering if I ought to be trying to get him used to "ordinary" English handwriting.

I wish I could like French cursive!

oooh how interesting! We're not quite there yet (my DD is only 1 ) but I'm a teacher in an international school in France and the children in my class all come to us with different types of handwriting. I let them use the style they have been taught since most will be going back to their home country at some point. I had figured that my DD would have to write like the French kids, since we live here and although it is VERY curly, the French schools make them practice a lot and it looks lovely in the end imo.
As an aside, (sorry OP) do you just teach English reading and writing at home yourselves or are your DC all at bilingual schools?

Yes, it's me!

I don't mean capitals, just not joined up letters.

French cursive is growing on me but don't worry, most of the adults I know use a far less flowery version than they one they teach in school.

Dd (7) has beautiful cursive handwriting. She uses it writing in English and French. Her English spelling needs some work though....

yy Porto - we have some terrible (but quite funny) spelling here too. We've started playing 'Consequences' which is very popular and I'm hoping that if we do a bit more English writing at home things might get a bit better.

SWE - have emailed you. I have noticed that only the older folk here have the full-on attaché style. In fact even ds1's teacher uses more ordinary handwriting than the children are being taught.

sleepy78 - we taught our first two children to read English at home before they learnt at school. We have very few books for older children in French so they only read in English at home. We haven't done much writing in English so far, but I am trying to gently encourage more of it. They are at an ordinary French school. Dd (third child) is just coming up to 1 and seems to enjoy eating French and English books.

My DD learned to write in GS/beginning of CP and instantly transferred her French writing skills to English - I didn't need to do anything to encourage her. She could already read a bit in English at that stage.

IMVHO children only need one version of handwriting for all European languages!

I disagree with Bonsoir. French-English bilingual children (educated in the French system) must be able to write in a Roman script that is legible for Anglo monolinguals who have no experience of French cursive. Lower case p, m, n, and r are illegible to most Brits and Americans when written in French attaché, as are upper case F, K and even T. Children need a simplifed Roman passe-partout script as well as French attaché.

I don't know why you find French attaché illegible - it's perfectly legible to all my DD's English friends and family!

I've just had a look at French attache style - it's very similar to DD2's American cursive, and almost identical to my mother's handwriting. So I don't think it would be illegible at all!

You may be underestimating how motivated loving grandparents / family are to decipher the charming first missives from young relatives. But most people don't share their motivation. Lower case p which does not have a closed loop is most certainly illegible to those not schooled in attaché.

I half agree. It's an acquired ability but not illegible by any stretch of the imagination. Certain letters are off but make sense in context.

Most adults I know have adapted their style to a hybrid version by closing the p a bit and making the m and n less loopy. That comes with time though so I don't think learning 2 styles is necessary or desirable.

I learned to write in an English prep school and my lower case p certainly didn't have a closed loop! I don't know what you are talking about!

I agree with QuitePrettyInPink - I don't want my children to be disadvantaged by their handwriting and there are many people in the UK who would find attache unattractive at best and illegible at worst.

I think I will leave it for the moment - I don't want to put ds1 off writing in English by making him feel that he has to learn a new style of handwriting - but as time goes on I think I will encourage a simpler style for English.

It may be, of course, that handwriting is effectively obselete for professional purposes by the time my lot are thinking about jobs so the whole thing will be academic.

Bonsoir - how bizarre.

I think you are seriously overthinking this, and it won't do your children any good at all to try to have two separate handwriting styles! It's enough work to master the essential parts of two languages without having to make cosmetic adaptations to cultural conventions as well...

We are the other way round... DS1 has learned to write in English (joined-up) at school, but in his French class the teacher writes in attaché - she says the kids don't have to follow suit, but since he's already bilingual we've encouraged him to practise the handwriting just so that he's learning something new. He's quite intrigued to work out the differences :)

We also thought it would be helpful for him to be able to produce French handwriting if he is ever operating in a French context, but I wouldn't pressure him into it if he was also having to cope with the language itself.

(He goes to a European School, where they have to do a second language from 6 and bilingual children are encouraged to do their 'other' home language.)

That's interesting Weta. I think ds1 would take well to that approach.

Bonsoir, I can certainly see that if your child is having difficulties mastering the two languages already then this would be a daft thing to think about. So far, though, ds1 and 2 have not had difficulties with reading or speaking both languages, so I don't think it is adding an additional burden. It is more like an extra facet of the bilingual, dual culture education - similar to correcting idiomatic errors in their spoken English.