Less active

We haven't been doing as much French this week, which is related to the reason my posts this week are fewer. It's not because the desire is not there. But daddy's away for three weeks, and we're staying at grandma and grandpa's house. Since my mom isn't so thrilled about us speaking French here, it's made it a bit more difficult to speak it as much as we normally would. It could be, too, that we're preoccupied with other things, and off our normal routine, so we're less inclined to think about it. I've noticed, for example, that I've been saying "Good night" and "I love you" at bedtime instead of "Bonne nuit" and "Je t'aime/Je vous aimez."
Another reason, likely, since I'm not preparing food in my own kitchen, I've not been inclined to listen to my own French lessons. We've been doing other things--sprinkling French throughout our day, but not as much, and I think it shows.

Speaking more French: little reminders

At church on Sunday, I saw a woman who is originally from Switzerland, and French is her native language. We have an understanding that she will speak French to me when she sees me, provided I can keep up. She often gives up on me, though. My comprehension far exceeds my production.

But I can speak, if given a little time to work out what it is I want to say. Sometimes I can't say the exact thing I intend, but I can think of an alternate way to get the same message across. On Sunday, I initiated conversation by saying (en Francais) "The sun is beautiful today, isn't it?" and she said "Yes, the spring is coming soon." In response, I chickened out and said in English, "We can hope." A moment later I realized I know exactly how to make that same response in French. I kicked myself, a bit, went back to her, and said, "Non, nous pouvons esperer." She looked a little startled, then smiled.

But it pointed out to me something I already know to be true about myself. I know more French than I make myself speak. But how to get it out? Honestly, it's a whole lot easier to speak in English. And the pace of homeschooling and keeping up with three kids under six is enough for any given day without adding something extra!

But I have begun to discover a few tricks. First, if we start the day in French, it's more natural to keep it going in French. To my shame, it's often my daughter (4) who initiates the switch. She's taken to calling me "Maman" instead of Mommy or Mama. That's often enough reminder for me to respond in kind. And although I despise TV in general, watching TV in French doesn't seem to have the same mind-numbing effect on my children, and starting the day with a French video can be just the thing to spur us to more Francais in the day.

We've also purchased French CDs--both the nursery rhyme/fingerplay variety and contemporary music. That helps set the tone, too.

I've noticed, too, that we speak more French after they've done their lessons, or during and after I'm doing mine. Mine are on MP3, and I'll listen to them while I'm in the kitchen, cleaning or preparing meals--with numerous interruptions, of course.

The other thing that's helped tremendously is learning the French that corresponds with a time of day--breakfast for example. Learning to set the table in French or have a bath using French words, for example, can mean that that ritual is done in French each time.

Naturally, we still slip and speak English when we could be speaking French, and I sometimes wonder if we'll ever really be bilingual, but we're working on it. The key is definitely a little French--somehow, someway--every day.

Site highlight: French fun

Here's an adorable--and really fun--site for learning French. It's called "French Fun," and it's a Blog Talk Radio broadcast created by Kelly Robic--an expatriate American living in France--and her son, Alex who teach French vocabulary lessons in 15-minute segments. It's designed for children 4-10.

Kelly leads Alex through teaching the lessons--and because it's Blog Talk Radio, you can hear the lessons! Alex has native pronunciation of French, and they do themed lessons. Recently, they did a lesson on love and Valentine's Day. Check it out!

Note: The broadcast starts with a brief, but somewhat annoying commercial, after which the broadcast begins. Just like TV, the commercial is several times louder than the rest of the broadcast. Also, note that the broadcast "loops." When it's finished, it will start all over again unless you close the site or navigate away from it.

French with children: winter weather

In Toronto, where we live, we've had one heck of a winter--the most snow I can remember in a winter for a long, long time. So I thought it might be appropriate to discuss some winter weather vocabulary:

What is the weather like today? Quel temps fait-il aujourd'hui?
Let's see what the weather is like today. Voyons quel temps il fait aujourd'hui.
It's cold/It's so cold/It's very cold/How cold it is!: Il fait froid/Il fait si froid/Il fait très froid/Comme il fait froid.

It's snowing. Il neige.
a snowstorm - une tempête de neige
snowman - un bonhomme de neige
two snowmen - deux bonshomme de neige
make a snowman - faire un bonhomme de neige
snowball - une boule de neige
make a snowball - faire une boule de neige
throw the ball - lance la boule
outside - dehors
winter - l'hiver

I put on (clothes)... Je mets...
Par example, Je mets mon manteau.

I take off (clothes)... J'enlève...
Par example, J'enlève mon bonnet.

(winter) hat - un bonnet
coat - manteau
gloves - une paire de gants
scarf - écharpe
boots - des bottes

Faves for French: product review of Storybridges to French

Today is a product review for a wonderful little resource called Storybridges to French. In the future there will be more of these kinds of reviews, as well as reviews for products that teach French to adults. (After all, we've got to stay une étape en avance of our kids!)

This is a little gem I found at my local library. I'm not sure exactly how I happened on it. French materials in our public library system can be somewhat tricky to locate. But you can isolate items according to audiovisual and children's categories, so that may have been how I dug it up. I initially borrowed it long before my efforts to teach French became as serious as they are now.

My kids love to listen to tapes on a Little Tikes tape recorder they received from their grandma a few years ago. A quick Google search reveals they aren't as easy to come by as they used to be, but probably worth hunting down on eBay. Our kids listen to little stories on tape and are just as excited about them as videos. I loved the Storybridges to French tapes the first time I heard them. Because they're oral, they make learning French accessible to children before they can read. The creator, Veronica Foster, and her two children Sydney and Sadie retell several well-known fairytales and fables--six in all: Goldilocks and the Three Bears, Little Red Riding Hood, The Turtle's Music, The Nightingale, The Shoemaker and the Elves, and Peter and the Wolf. (There are Spanish, ESL and German versions as well, and the Spanish and ESL versions have more stories.)

Ms. Foster tells the stories in English, interspersed with French. She calls it "gradual immersion" because she builds from story to story, gradually using more and more French. It's quite brilliant, really. After each story is a short review or some questions. With the help of Sydney and Sadie, she encourages children to listen to and repeat the French even if they don't understand the words at first, because that's how we learned our first language. But the context of the stories makes the French readily understood, and very easy to learn. The speaking is very clear, and broken down into manageable little chunks.

The only small complaint I have is that quite frequently, Ms. Foster uses the phrase "Oh, mon Dieu," and has the children repeat it. I understand that this is a realistic part of French culture, but since we've taught our children not to say "Oh my God" in English, it came as quite a shock to them when they heard the English interpretation of this phrase. The only other note I'll make here is that the stories are Ms. Foster's own original adaptations. If you're a purist, you may not appreciate that there's no gobbling of the grandmother in Little Red Riding Hood, for example. Instead, the grandmère offers le loup le poulet that le petit chaperone rouge brings her, and they all sit down for a picnic.

I had hoped to own a copy of Storybridges. It now comes on CD, and if you buy directly from Ms. Foster, you get a teacher CD with each story CD that has transcripts of the stories, games and tests, and more.

I must confess at this point, that although I probably couldn't count the money I've spent on French teaching and learning resources, I'm a relentless bargain hunter, and almost refuse to pay full price for anything. I waited and searched and finally found Storybridges--a retired library copy--used on Amazon for less than $13.00. Granted, I have the cassette version, not the CDs, and I have no additional learning resources, but I'm so happy we finally own this wonderful resource.

Teaching that sticks

Well, Pierre was back today by popular demand, but I may have found something that works even better. I've been looking into a method of teaching French to children pioneered in Canada by a woman named Wendy Maxwell. She uses various media to teach French, including plays and music, which I'm already using and/or working on, but the core of her method is the concept of "pared down language" and the use of gestures to make the language learning stick. She calls her method AIM (Accelerative Integrated Method). The method has received rave reviews, and is quickly being adopted by school boards all across Canada. The bold claim is that AIM users can achieve achieved in less than 1/2 hour a day. You can see why it's appealing!

I've known about Ms. Maxwell's method for a while now, but I'd been somewhat hesitant about it, since, as previously mentioned, I've been teaching my children sign language (ASL). The gestures Ms. Maxwell uses in her method are not the same. Her gestures are meant to be the most natural motion for the word. For example, for "walk," the gesture is the index and middle finger "walking" in the air, while the ASL sign is a two-handed motion with both hands moving back and forth in front--you can see the sign demonstrated on various ASL demonstration sites, such as ASL Pro. (Although there is one version of "walk" in sign that is identical to this motion.)

I'd heard of teachers who use sign language in their classrooms to enhance the teaching of French. The biggest argument in favour of it is that signing or gesturing involves different kinds of learners and different kinds of learning. It's visual and kinesthetic (involving the body). Like a picture, it gives a reference point for the sign when children may forget the words.

I wanted to try using sign to assist the teaching of French with my kids. Since I'm already a believer in using sign with children, the biggest hurdle for me was figuring out the "pared down language." Ms. Maxwell has isolated her pared down language to 700 of the most useful French words for children. The other day when I visited the Modern Language Collection at the library, I found a book with transcripts and detailed frequency summaries of the speech of native 9-year-olds. Most of the words were verbs, prepositions and adjectives (so it therefore didn't include the nouns you'd commonly learn in vocabulary lessons--words for clothes and food items and animals, etc. ). I copied down approximately 200 of the most commonly used words. I'll add to that some of the words most commonly used in teaching baby/child sign, available readily on the Internet, and some of the vocabulary sets like clothing and animal words.

I spent a chunk of time on the weekend making a chart of French words, and their ASL and English equivalent. I'm a little more than halfway through my work on the chart (of the core 200 words), and I already had a chance to put some of it into practice this week. It works great! The sign makes an easy and effective way to prompt my kids for a word they may have forgotten, and makes learning a lot of fun. Plus, there's the added benefit of learning more than one language at a time!

And it's not as hard as it might sound, once the initial work is done. Together with Pierre, we livened up a book my kids hadn't been so interested in using before, and they had a lot of fun with it.

Stay tuned. Tomorrow I'll start a product review of some of the resources I've located for teaching French effectively.

fun & games

One of the things I know to "work" in language learning because of my experiences teaching English as a second language, is games. The problem is, when I taught English, it was relatively easy to find innumerable books full of suggestions for games and activities for the language classroom.

It seems that in the field of French as a second language teaching, it's not so easy. I've found a number of resources available in the UK, but with their price and shipping costs...well, I'm still looking for other alternatives.

I spent some time in the Modern Language collection of the local university library, and found some fantastic ESL-type activities that would be easily adapted for use in our home, with French.

In the meantime, here's a game Pierre introduced the other day. He and I taught the names of six objects. We used a candy (un bonbon), a pen (un stylo), a key (une cl), a ticket (un billet), some money (d'argent), and one other item I can't seem to think of at the moment. We also had a paper bag (un sac). The kids took turns hiding an object in the paper bag and the rest of us (including Pierre) had to guess what was in the bag by asking questions. For example, "As tu un stylo dans le sac?"