DS thrown in at deep end - what to expect?

[dilbertina]

We have moved to France. Ds(3.5)recently started at the local Maternelle. His teacher is lovely, she speaks to him in French and then repeats it in English if talking to him directly but obviously the vast majority of the time it's French only. I'm intrigued how children start picking up French in this sort of situation. DS can happily count to 10 in French, say hello, thankyou & goodbye and that's about it. (Although he seems to be excelling in stomach-led learning and knows cake, snack, chocolate, biscuit etc!)

My accent is pretty abysmal and I don't want to teach him bad habits, DH is better and does speak a little French to him. We have got French nursery rhyme CDs etc
I'd be interested to hear other peoples' experience of how long it took before dc started to get a grasp of the new language, and what helped?

My french friend who moved her children to the UK 3 yrs ago, didn't speak much english at all to begin with and yet, her children soaked it up and soon became quite bilingual. As long as they're getting to hear and speak french on a regular basis, then they'll pick it up very quickly. It would help him too if you went to classes so that you can help him at home but if his dad speaks to him a lot in french, then he'll learn english and french at the same rate. My friend spoke french to her kids and her DH (who had learnt a lot more english than her), spoke to them in english. The balance was good and now they've moved back to France, the children are still really missing england and are both still speaking english at home and school. Going there whilst your DS is only preschool age, is great, as he'll be eager to learn anything!
Is there a big english community where you are; perhaps you could invite some other english people over and chat about how they've integrated their own children. It would be nice too if your DS also had english friends as well as french.

Wait a couple of years and you will be more concerned about their loosing their English than their ability to talk in the local language.

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DNiece did the same at more or less the same age. She said nothing at Maternelle for ~6months, apparently. Now she is fine (age 7), but life is still very compartmentalised - she speaks French at school and English at home, and never mixes them.

Mostly what your Ds might need is emotional support, reassurance.

Fortunately at this age children communicate a lot using bodylanguage, oohs and ahs. My children (French/english living in England, french mum, english DH) used to include some French words while playing, no children ever seemed to notice.

French was definitely my DS (7) first language and now he is only willing to speak it on occasions.
DD1 speak to me in Franglais and has always done a bit of mixing. She uses a french verb construction with english words (Regarde, je vais jumper dans la swimming pool!) but she loves trying her French out.
Basically it is a race to cram as much mother tongue as possible before they go to school, as in about 3 months they will speak the school language and use it preferably when given the choice.
Good Luck!

My 3.6 yo DS speaks mostly English from being at home with me since birth, but his fRench is fast catching up now that he goes to school.

When he doesn't know a word in the right language he uses the one he does know like your DD1 tulipe "tu vas take off les petites wheels de mon velo, Daddy?" and suchlike, but when we tell him the right word he can use it immediately and usually remembers it.

Your DS will be fine, at his age he will pick it up very naturally and his accent will be good so there is not a lot you need to do. His spoken English will continue to develop as he lives in an fully anglophone house, but you will have to make an effort to teach him reading and writing in English when the time comes.

Thanks everyone! We only expect to be in France for a few years so I'm hoping he will pick it up fairly quickly! He did manage to swap trousers with another boy the other day because "they liked each others better" so he is presumably communicating somehow!

His older sister is at an English school because she was class 1 and we decided it would be better for her to consolidate learning to read and write rather than go to Maternelle, espec. since we plan to stay only for a limited time. She does have a French lesson every day and seems to be picking it up. Hopefully it won't be long before they're teaching me! (Have had lessons but I am most definitely not a natural!)

DD started preschool in the community language (which we don't speak at home) at two and a half. Six months later, she has a fairly wide vocabulary and is coming out with sentences, albeit somewhat ungrammatical ones (the community language is a very inflected one).

I did worry to begin with that it would be detrimental if the teachers spoke English to her at all (the one who has most contact with her often spoke English to her at the start), but it seems to have been all for the good, and I think they've now pretty much phased out English when talking to her.