Has anybody ever done a 'child swap' with a friend for language learning?

[Kendodd]

I have a friend who lives in France and we were just visiting and loosely talked about 'swapping' children for a year. We were thinking that maybe one of her children could come and live with us for maybe up to one year. We would enrol them in the local secondary school and they would live with us but go home in the school holidays, sort of like boarding school. One of my children would do the same with her family. The main point of this would be to learn English/French.

Has anyone ever done this? How would it work? Could I just send her child to our local secondary school? Our children would do this in the first or second year of secondary school, before GCSE studies. Would it mess up their education? One thing I would fear would be that social services would see this as some sort of unofficial fostering and might try to put a stop to it.

Any advice?

Are you serious? You can't be serious...

If learning another language is that important to you, get a tutor. Or let one visit for a couple of weeks in the summer. Swap kids for a YEAR? Of course it will mess up their education. And they will miss you hugely. Cannot get my head around that one.

Yes, but they know the family very well, they have kids the same/similar age and would only be going for about 6-8 weeks at a time, coming home in the holidays. Is it so very different to boarding school?

I think it's a great idea, but I am not sure if I could send mine away for so long. If you completely trust the family, then it would be a great experience. You could try it for a few months and see how the kids get on?

Legally I have no idea how this works with education, but surely you just enroll them at school as you would have be made the child's legal guardian wouldn't you? Also in case of an accident so you could give consent quickly etc.

I just don't know how all the legalities and practicalities would work out, I suspect they may be insurmountable and we might end up just having each other's children visit for a couple of weeks at a time.

I just think it would be really great for their French and also wider education and knowledge of another culture and how they really work to have a year at a French school.

I know another poster thinks it definitely would mess up their education as is a really bad idea. I would worry about that a little because they wouldn't be following the same path as it were but it could also be a positive thing in that they might learn a wider range of stuff between the two systems? I would have to get them to have at least a basic level of French first as well. I wouldn't worry about them missing us too much (I'm sure I'd miss them a lot more) Because they'd see us every holiday.

The French and English education systems are so very different, I think it would be a disaster. Added to which it will take 3-4 months for the child to get up to speed in the target language so for those months their education will be stalled as they sit uncomprehendingly in chemistry and history lessons. They would miss a year's tuition in their own language so likely struggle on return.

I cannot think of any positives, frankly.

Did I mention I think it's a terrible idea?

My DN is coming to stay with my DM for at least a term to go to school. I think you'd need to be at least that close, and DN is already bilingual, but she just has to say "this girl is living with me" - they didn't want any proof she was a relative. It might count as private fostering though.
DN was not in school and DB had finally admitted he'd bitten off more than he could chew with home-not-really-schooling. So at least in this direction there were no transition issues.
She should improve her written English and some English conversation wouldn't hurt her either, she does have a bit of a non-native accent in English and could beef up her vocabulary too, as is fairly common for bilingual children living in the other country.

I knew somebody in America would did this. She went to school in Denmark for a year and a Danish child stayed with her family and went to school in American. I think it was some sort of official thing though, arranged with the schools although she was the only child would did this, it wasn't with a group or anything. I'm not really sure how they arranged it though, the parents might have just done it themselves.

She always talked really positively about it and loved her time in Denmark even though she didn't speak a single word of Danish to begin with. I don't know if or how it affected her education though.

I cannot think of any positives, frankly.

Really, not even one? I can think of loads.

Have a look at this site.
www.allef.org.uk

They arrange six month-long exchanges (where the children spend six months together in one country and then six months together in the other.) They have lots of info about how it works with Schools, when is a good age etc

We live in France, and DS (although almost 4) goes to a french school.
He is still quite behind in his french after a year of school.
I can however definitely see the benefits of having a bilingual child.

As they french have such long summer holidays (all of July and August), perhaps you the french child could come to you in July and experience french school and be a sort of exchange student with your DC then yours could over in august.)

For a year, frankly that's insane.
If they are at school they will massively struggle in the Uk system and will miss out on their home countries education system and so will be behind when they return.
Why not do a swop for 1 month maximum. I did this when 15. In those days I was allowed leave from school and took school work with me. It really helped my French. But I stayed with the family and then the girl I stayed with came to stay with my family. So we each had someone out own age. However on my family's part it wasn't so successful as she refused to speak english and was clearly very homesick. It could be done during the school holidays. But not a year.

Thanks, I'll have a look.

We did think if we did it it might be an idea to do it consecutively rather than simultaneously. To be honest I think it might just be too hard to arrange and with too many pros.

No, no positives at all.

To become bilingual will take more than one year abroad. It will be very hard for the teen to fit in to their new school. It will be very hard for them to pick up the target language, children and especially teens, are not "sponges", contrary to popular myth. Unlike in the UK, France makes little or no allowance for children with French as an additional language, even in maternelle. So sending a British teen with little French into a French collège or lycée is likely to be a disaster. The way subjects are taught is very different. How will the teen get on writing an essay on French history, when they know next to nothing about French history? French grammar is taught in a much more explicit fashion than in England. A teen who cannot conjugate first group verbs reliably will cause havoc in French lesson. If the teen comes back home every 6 weeks or so, they are actually very unlikely to achieve a high level of French over the course of a year anyway. Education is structured completely differently in France; there is less emphasis on critical thinking, no room for questioning teachers, marking is brutal.

Plus, they will miss their own lessons back in England, how on earth will they catch up?

What are the positives you anticipate?

You'd lose you child's school place. How important that is will depend on how full their school is.

What about a gap year?