Language choices in quatrième.

[pinkhousesarebest]

Just wondering if someone could help me out as I am a bit conflicted. Ds chose German in 6ème and is happy with his choice. He now wants to take Spanish next year and not English. We speak English at home and he is a bookworm and his written skills are solid, so I would be happy to see him gainfully employed as it were. But strategically I also see the benefits that doing English would bring, when things get tougher later on. Would he be able to play the English card ever or is this it? Any advice gratefully accepted as we have to decide this weekend.

"Education these days is too much to do with collecting exam certificates, and not enough about valuing learning things."

Yes, that's the system; why should some DC apply different criteria to their choices? It's nonsensical.

Licence + Master is a very different social choice to Prépa + Ecole d'Ingenieur. It says far more about family background than anything else.

oh, and since your post about bias from monolinguals came while I was writing mine, I should point out that I am bilingual (to the point where French people who meet me for the first time do not necessarily notice that I am not a native speaker) through education, having started taking French in yr 7 in the UK and chosen to move to France after my A Levels.

I do realise that it is entirely possible my view point on this will change once my own child (who will have dual nationality and who I hope to raise bilingually) is of school age.

So your DC will (as an example) finish school without being able to speak Spanish, because you wanted her to pick up an exam certificate without putting any work at all in (which no-one will think anything of anyway because they will know that your DC is a bilingual English speaker). And DC will have learned the lesson always to do what is easiest, rather than what is most interesting for example.

My DC started at french schools in September 2013 and my DS (currently in 5eme) is not allowed to do English which I think is pretty unfair because as Bonsoir quite rightly says he "is already at a huge disadvantage versus the native child because learning through the medium of a second language." And I also agree that it would give him a break and his moyenne a boost to get the extra points.

We're planning to move our DC to a bilingual school next year so this thread is very apt reading for me. Interestingly, I think DS will have to do English there so it should be the break he deserves .

I hope it does, cocolacocotte. You will perhaps realize that being a bilingual child in France is really quite hard work for both child and parent(s).

pinkhousesarebest apologies, it's your thread: I think your DS should do what he wants. School in France is tough enough already and I assume he's already bilingual?

Whereupon - in an ideal world, where grades didn't count, yes, we would all spend our time learning and not bothering with pesky high stakes exams.

We don't, however, live in an ideal world.

I would let him take the Spanish if his written skills are as good as you say (I have the opposite attitude as I don't think that my dcs french is strong enough to let them NOT do french at secondary - I'm in the UK).

When he is going to do his Bac, he will still be able to also do english as a foreign language which means a nice boost for his average mark.

I would wonder too if the school will be happy for him not take any english at all. It's a very unusual situation to be in. nd they migt refuse on the ground of organisation (there won't be any other children not doing english in that year).

I would though be very careful to check that his written english is as good as iot should be. Speaking and reading isn't the same thing as being able to do a commentary on a newspaper article (to the french standard). And he might well learn some stuff about the english culture too (Again it depends on how much time he spends in the UK etc....)

It does make me wonder though. Most english speakers in France seems to be able to bring fully bilingual children but very few french speakers seem to be able to bring up fully bilingual children in the UK.... I would love to know what you are doing that we aren't!

I agree that social factors are a major factor in the choice between licence + master or prépa + école d'ingé but they aren't the only ones. My DH did a prépa + ingé, as did his younger brother, his sister chose to do a licence + master because it better suited her personality and style of learning. I don't ask them why they didn't do lycée Hoche and polytechnique and, to be honest, I'm more interested in the reasoning behind the choice than the choice itself (I'm university educated myself, contrary to most of the people in my social group). Candidates regularly tell me that they chose to do a licence rather than a prépa because the prépa (in my field, this usually means Maths Spé/Sup) seemed too demanding (or some variation on that theme). One candidate last week even told me that he chose a particular school that had an integrated prépa because there are no on-site classes and after his Bac he was "bored of having to go to the same place at the same time every day". I'm sure that this is a valid position for some but not something you want to hear when you're hiring for a 9-5 job...

Also, to all saying it's easy/lazy just because someone is bilingual in speaking doesn't mean their reading and writing skills will be that good. I did A level Italian because although my parents spoke Italian to me all the time, I found it tricky to read and even harder to write in.

Having said that, although it got me an A at A level I remember one of my offers saying ABB excluding Italian.

"Most English speakers in France seems to be able to bring fully bilingual children but very few French speakers seem to be able to bring up fully bilingual children in the UK.... I would love to know what you are doing that we aren't!"

I agree that the French in the UK have a harder time maintaining their DCs' French than do the British in France maintaining their DCs' English (though it is much more work than raising a monolingual child). I think that there is much more widespread support for French-English bilingualism in France than in the UK: there are really quite a lot of sections internationales across France, for example, and educated French people expect to speak English and expect their DC to speak English in a way that British people do not assume their families should speak French as a matter of course.

I think rejecting Prépa because is is boring and horizon-limiting is a very astute choice, personally...

(based on the 45 year olds around me who did sup/spé and Polytechnique/Centrale etc and are in complete midlife meltdown with absolutely no imagination...)

If he is already bilingual, and wants to do Spanish, I would let him. The affective dimension of studying something you want to is not to be underestimated.

My (bilingual) daughter will choose between English weighted International High School and English/Chinese/German equally weighted Linguistic High School in 2 yrs time. I don't know, and the choice will be hers, but I imagine she will go for the latter which I will be happy with, because a) she wants to and b) 3 MFLs will give her far more opportunities in the job market.

Whether we like it or not, a bilingual student who opts for a pathway which is heavily weighted in one of their native languages will raise eyebrows for the reasons Coco says. We can bleat all we want that that might be unfair (and it is) but it will happen. (I speak as the owner of a bilingual Italian-English daughter who at school gets higher marks in Spanish than she does in English- go figure!)

And DC will have learned the lesson always to do what is easiest, rather than what is most interesting for example.

DISCLAIMER - Am not in France.

I think the issue that many overlook is that in an awful lot of school systems there is a significant degree of time crunch. A bilingual child can be at a time/energy disadvantage. Becuase they are having to juggle learning in order to develop TWO mother tongues + 2 MFLs, while others have to manage just one mother tongue + 2 MFLs.

Somewhere, somehow parents and child have to trim, nip and tuck to find the time to fit everything in. Becuase being bilingual doesn't necessarily happen in a "no work, no sweat, no tears" vacuum. It may require many many hours of work outside of the mainstream stream classroom. It's only natual that if your kid has two native languages and third as a second language you'll consider junking yet another L2 in favour of creating a bit of time/effort space that can be better redirected.

Being bilingual isn't all that valued above and beyond "lucky you". There tends to be an assumption it was automatic and easy. So there's little on offer to validate (with certificates) the sorts of efforts that have gone in to creating a mostly unsung success. Which is annoying.

Thank you all. Bonsoir I didn't know he could chose a language option for the Bac, so that is interesting. I personally would love him to do Spanish as he would be learning something new. That choice would not be appropriate though for dd who doesn't read as he does and whose skills are way behind as a result, so it does depend on the dc. But she will be able to take German and English in 6eme so the problem may not arise.

       However I have just spoken to the school who are going to check how it would work out in terms of planning as it is an unusual situation, so the choice may be taken out of our hands anyway. <strong>Castles</strong> what did you decide in the end?

Well I did the prepa-ecole d'ingenieur and I wouldn't say it was horizon-limiting.
Not when you see I'm living abroad, have lived in sevral countries and done a range of jobs that is quite varied etc etc.
Most of the people who came out of my school have done similar things.

On the other side, I have some very good friends who have done the 'Fac' route with Phd and so on and live in the same small town than their parents with little want to ever go out of it, same routine, same ideas than them etc... If it was all just about the type of education you had, I would have said that it's University that has been horizon-limiting....

Having said that, I think that system to select candidates is extremely harsh and might not select people for the right reasons. Selection is very much based on whether you can handle pressure, high amount of work and have develop and ability to go straight for the important thing, not look at the details and concentrate on the big picture.
That means you end with engineers that are good at what they do, very good at dealing with crisis but make everythig a crisis. You also end up with people who think nothing about doing extremely long hours, which again you might not want to do from a life-balance pov.
But will be happy to work late/make a massive effort to finish a project which can be a good thing (and their british counterparts are completely unable to do that).
That sort of culture doesn't work with research either. Or with project where details are important or where relationships are important (at least not when you start working with other countries).

But that has little to do with whether the OP's ds should do english at school or not!

I agree with Mutters. That is certainly my experience with the dcs. The time and the energy to make them do all the learning re spelling etc just isn't there.

Thanks Frozen.

pinkhousesarebest, sadly not moving to your neck of the woods. Yet! Staying in our departement but moving to a city (if you can call it that ).

Sorry - late to the thread, but just wanted to say Because being bilingual doesn't necessarily happen in a "no work, no sweat, no tears" vacuum. Yes to that! They may pick up two languages with ease when they are just learning to talk, but maintaining them to a high standard is not so easy. My two are now slogging through the international section of a French school. It's hard going - especially for DD in 4eme who is often at school from 8 until 6 while the monolingual section sometimes don't rock up until 9.30 and are always finished by 5 at the latest. I keep stressing to them that they'll thank me in the end - but Bonsoir is right, being bilingual is certainly not an easy option just because they have English parents (not easy for the kids or the parents!)

I am confused why any fully bilingual/biliterate (FR-EN) child after the end of primary would choose an international section, over a plain vanilla Bac. If the family and outside interests offer a wide curriculum, what is the advantage of an international section in secondary, given the school day is already so long? This is not meant as a criticism, but am just curious to hear why from any mumsnettas with teenagers or who are involved in tertiary education.

Because being fully biliterate means that you have to put in just as much effort than for your other mother tongue.
So you might have a child that is bilingual in am everyday scenario but not biliterate in the ability to write to a higher standard if language, or to knowire about the classics in your language etc etc.
the reality is that yes there are some overlap in literature between 2 languages but it's just that an overlap. The rest you still have to learn it.
For me, it's very much the ability if being able to write to a high standard (spellings and vocabulary and ways of saying things) that I'm hoping the dcs will learn (Not that they will be in an international school. There just aren't any where I am anyway).

Exactly that Undecided a child is not really fully bilingual if his Grammar/Vocabulary/Spelling ends at Primary leaving age.

DS1 is currently in 5ieme, we are looking at the possibility for him to do 3ieme at La Baule, to give him more chance to be accepted into the International Section at the Lycee there the following year - he would board during the week, but those in the village who go to the local Lycee catch their bus at 7am and return again at 7pm - so you may as well be at school studying instead of sat on the bus! Those students who do well at the OIB have much higher chances of getting into the Uni of their choice. Obviously it's early days for us yet, but the work in English covers appropriate History and Geography as well as literature and grammar as you would expect. We were told to expect around an extra 3 hours work a day on top of the regular coursework.