Teaching a toddler another language, which I'm not too brilliant at speaking myself ...

[KiwiKat]

I really want my 2 1/2 year old son to learn to speak a second language, but besides my native English, I speak only very basic French, so would never dream of attempting to teach him myself. Ideally I'd like him to do something in the weekends (as he is happily settled with a childminder during the week) that involves just playing with other children in a French-speaking environment, rather than a structured class, but the only groups I've heard about are for children who already hear French spoken at home.

Can anyone offer any advice re this? We live in East London.

Merci!

Could you see if there is a La Jolie Ronde class near you? i think they take from 3 ys old

Thanks Little Ducks, I'll take a look.

No advice, but would also be interested to follow this thread as have friends in a similar boat.

Has anyone tried this?
I shall say this only once and duck quickly because I've read posts from people who would willingly crucify anyone who so much as suggests showing a child a flashcard ... Anyway I follow this approach and it has been the best baby book I have ever read - it has taught me to respect my children's intellect and priorities, and we have enormous fun learning our language, and as a by-product DS1 has been able to read and write Chinese for a while now.

A word of warning - in our town there is a French club that a lot of Boden-type mothers (like me!) send their children to. My dd didn't go - can't remember why, but it just didn't happen. The ones that did seem to be no further on at French by year 8 than the ones that didn't! Not sure if this apples to all of them, but it's certainly true of ours. They had a lot of fun, though!

Slng - see here

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/home_ed/674367-Doman-39-s-quot-how-to-teach-your-baby-to

for the likely MN response to this question ...

Man/Woman: thank you. I won't post any strong response (am coward as far as confrontation is concerned) but I must say that I love the Doman approach because everything is so much fun. We learn everything this way - short sessions, LOTS of laughing and giggling, absolutely NO testing of anything (if you can't find more devious way of finding out what your children can or cannot do then perhaps you need to think harder or stop wanting to know, and besides, who needs to know when you are having fun), lots of observation on what their interests are, and plenty of respect for what the children need to do and want to do. What is there not to like? I've used the same method for teaching to write, which is completely NOT the way I learned, and seems to be very effective. Not the maths though - that's just not working. Have ambitions about music education but we'll see ...

And all this standing out from peers issues either don't occur (we are reading Chinese - I don't teach my children English, and they seem to have an instinct for NOT telling anyone they can speak or read or write Chinese and I certainly don't go around telling people that in RL) or already occur and cannot be helped (they are mix-raced children, I speak/shout to them in private and in public in a different language from everyone else)

As for hothousing - they don't know what they are talking about. But that's why I don't tell anyone about it. It's our little secret and we love it.

Sorry- Kiwikat, don't mean to be hijacking. What reminded me was that a friend of mine teaches her children languages she's not familiar with using this method...

I just want him to hear another language and for its cadences to become familiar.

I'd like to do this with DS. He kisses ladies' hands and says 'enchante' which just about makes them melt!
I can do 'get by' French so I may just try some fun stuff with him at home for now