Teaching my 7 year olds my second language

[Tinmum2]

Hi,
Would love to hear of any positive stories from anyone who has managed to teach their older children another family language. I grew up bilingual (my mother is French) but have not sueded in doing the same for my children for various reasons. I have always spoken to them in French (read them French stories and sang songs in French) but wasn't consistent in doing it all the time. My husband is English and doesn't speak French. We also spend a lot of time with his mother who also doesn't speak French. My mum speaks French to them and so does my brother.
I have recently started speaking a lot more French with them. We also do 15 minutes of French reading and writing a day and will be starting an online French class soon.
My children have a positive attitude to French, understand quite a bit of every day French and will reply in French with single words or from an option of two phrases (e.g. to say what they want for breakfast).
Am just looking for some encouragement that hopefully we can manage some level of fluency in the future, even if it takes a few years. Thanks in advance for any responses.

My children are the same age and are trilingual. It may still work if you switch entirely into French. It doesn’t matter that other people speak English to them, one parent is enough.
Instead of an online class, are there any French Saturday schools near you? Being with other multilingual kids may motivate them and be more fun.
How much time can you spend in France each year?
Would they accept TV only in French? This may depend on how much screen time they already have (mine have zero during the week so they would watch in any language whether they understood or not if that was the only option)

Thank you for your reply. Trilingual is an amazing achievement! Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be much of a French community where we live (the Midlands). I have investigated local language groups but haven't found any so far. Will see where we get with the online class. We do have friends with children, we're not particularly close with who are French speaking so will see if they might be up for a playdate sometime.
We will be visiting my brother's family in a few weeks and they are a French speaking household. We tend to stay a couple of weeks in France each summer. I might extend it to 3 weeks this year.
Our children do watch TV so would probably resist exclusively French TV as they have their favourite programs. But they have enjoyed watching Asterix in French so will do a bit more French TV. Have also been playing more French music around them. My mum has noticed they will reply to me in French more often since I started focusing on speaking more French a few weeks ago. It will be slower progress but hoping we will make some gains this year.

Our children are trilingual.

It takes a lot of effort to achieve fluency. They are fluent in two out of three languages.

The children have been taught two home languages and cultures from birth.

The third language has been taught from reception class. The 3rd language was childrens' own choice to pass time under covid. Not a mother tongue language for us but parents do speak and understand it well.

In everyday life the children need lots and lots of conversations, lots of interaction with people speaking the languages, lots of books/comics/games/audiobooks/films to work with.
Take them to see theatre perfirmances in the target language/s. Watch Disney movies in the target language/s in the cinema.

Regular visits to relevant countries (see family if possible) so very useful.
Mayby summer schools or camps (which can be expensive).
Ours go Girl Guiding/Scouting jamborees in summer to strengend their language/s and bonds with Girl Guides/Scouts culture in their two first languages. Needs some travelling.

Our children have online tutor lessons 60 minutes twice a week in second and third languages. It's works brillant for them/us. They are assigned homework each week. They enjoy these classes and work pretty hard. It can take some research to find the right match between teacher and pupil.

Their first language is 100% fluency.
School language at the moment.
just changed a few weeks ago as we relocated at Christmas.

Second language is a very high fluency. They use it daily. Do leisure classes in this language and have friends their own age.
it has been school language for years. Now we have to keep up the level.

Third language - the basic is working and being developed. Not used much in everyday life but well above over expected performing level in their new school the teacher tells us.

We relocated at Christmas to an EU country from 20 years in UK.
3rd language in new country is a mandatory subject and they do very well. The native children have been taught a year of curriculum at this point and school expected nothing of our children. Thank you, Covid.

They are taught the national language of course, English as 2nd and German (or French) as 3rd - which fit our children well.

But tbh raising bilingual children is a very big commitment and often hard work. But very rewarding!

FB has some great groups for parents with children with multiple languages.

We have been in this game for the long run. The oldest two children are +18 yo are at university and the youngst in secondary school.

I have no knowledge in this area, just wanted to say I picked up quite a bit of Welsh by watching Welsh peppa pig complete with Welsh subtitles so I heard it and read it at the same time. could you look for their favourite programmes in French, you might find on YouTube or just change the language on Netflix/tv. Also I think you can get French subtitles in English programmes/ films and vice versa. Would also help their reading!

I don’t tend to think of it as an achievement as that makes it seem hard. They’ve just been exposed to three languages from birth, two local languages plus mine, and have picked them up. They do have native accents in all three now but they had useful levels of competence before the accent really clicked. At least at their age you can explain what you are doing and why.

At this stage your main obstacle is that they naturally communicate with each other in English so you need to aim for a period of each day that is strictly French only — maybe when Dad isn't home? And consider some reward system for compliance.

Also, French is not your second language; it's your mother tongue.

Thanks so much for sharing all your experiences, thoughts and suggestions. That is really helpful and will help spur me on. 🙂