Help with French

[xylem8]

DD is coming to the end of Y7 and seems to be lagging behind with French particularly the grammar they have done so far (which isn't very much).Present tense ER IR and RE verbs, avoir atre aller, faire and 1 or 2 others , ne... pas, agreeing adjectives, and a bit more
Are there any ideas, resources you could suggest to help her get up to speed so she isn't totally lost next year

BBC Bitesize looks good ...CGP French books (even GSCE ones are good for year 7) ..doing an intensive French course for a week over the summer (easier if you are somewhere like London or Oxford) ..., some Easy Reader reader french books from Amazon...little and often is the key though - it will build up over months by repetition and doing a bit every week

This website done by the University of Texas is good at explaining grammar very clearly. I use it a lot.

You could try making very simple example sentences to practise.
Or flash cards.
And do 5 every day.

Then it's easier to remember.

You are right to get the verbs sorted out. My DD 17 did French for GCSE and realised in year 9 that they hadn't really covered the verbs properly. What she did was to learn one verb, say the example ER verb, and then get me to test her on that for a few minutes each evening. Once that one was 'fixed', add on the example IR verb and then test on both for a few evenings, then add in the RE verb and test on all three, and so on. We did this in the summer holidays of year 9 and it made a huge difference. Just 10 minutes or so each evening.

Hi xylem8,
What monikar is suggesting sounds excellent.
In addition you may find A Green Mouse helpful. I am a content partner on TES and have a blog on mumsnet:

A Green Mouse French for children

If you're looking for exercises to practise the learning then www.languagesonline.org.uk is a good website.

Can anybody suggest a recommended intensive French course, either in London or possibly France?
This is for a slightly older child (young teen)

You think she is lagging behind, is this what she feels or is it because her close friends are doing a little better. There is no harm at all in helping them, but if you have any doubts about her struggling it might be best to chat to the tutor and see what they think. You may well have had one, but we are due an end of year report, showing which target they were aiming for, what they reached and a brief tutor's comment for each subject - if you get something like that, it may help. I don't think my daughter has reached all her targets for the year - I will find out in the next couple of days. Just remembered, that on our school's website there are links for each subject with information, so maybe something there.

Friends have been saying good things about Duolingo lately.

memrise is free and effective for teaching basic words. It needs abou t 10 mins per day

I highly recommend Galore Park's 'So you really want to Learn French?' series of books (book 1 quite basic but you could go through it quickly as it establishes the foundation). My DS was struggling in Y6 with French but has just scored A at Common Entrance having worked through these books (with me).