Advice needed for teaching toddler French

Early Learning Teaching Your Child - Signing, Speaking, Languages
1

Hi all,

I am after advice on teaching my toddler French. Here is the background information:

My daughter is 17months old and we speak English at home. She has a very large productive vocabulary (says 400 words) and is just starting to string words together. She does seem to have an incredible memory - reminding me of things we need to buy at the shops that I might have said 2 days prior. We have just started LR and LMus. We will not do LMath but use other methods

One of her grandparents speaks fluent French but is extremely nervous/embarrassed about trying to teach my daughter. They spend 1 whole day together a week (8 hours) and one afternoon (about 3 hours).

So I’m wondering a few things

  • is it best to delay starting for another year or so, until my daughter has a good grasp on the English language? Or would it be best to start as soon as possible? Are there arguments to go both ways on this?
  • what advice/encouragement can I give to her grandparent?
  • any tips on a plan/structure etc for me? do I fill in the rest of the week with electronic activities? or do I just leave it to these 2 days when she shes her grandparent?
  • should I incorporate French into LR or stick with English

thanks in advance for any advice

2

Hi,

We are franco-polish family living now in USA… We have three children, DS is 45 months, DD 22 months and DS 3 months. I spend most the time with them and when we are alone we speak polish. When we are all together, we speak french ( so mornings/ evenings and weekends) and english is for outside the home and read alouds / story time before nap. My daughter started to speak at about 16 months but she spoke directly in all three languages :slight_smile: She tell me something in polish and then she turns and tell the same thing to my hubby in french :slight_smile: I have no idea how many words she can say but each day she tell something new. She can perfectly understand also in any of these languages… All this to tell you that if you have this opportunity, go ahead :slight_smile: It’s not only about one more language, it’s one more culture, like one whole world ‘de plus’:wink:

Advice hmm special bound with granddaughter? :wink: Sharing unique stories, memories? Giving enormous opportunity and greater start in life? Or build stronger brain architecture? All of our grandparents are so far from us, but they will be really happy to share such adventure with their grandchildren…

We don’t really use anything supplementary, just everyday life. Sometimes we listen to some french nursery rhymes (comptines) on you tube. We have some french books here and read them sometimes. Some time ago I bought a Wink to Learn french dvds but I don’t like them. There is also quite a few mistakes (like words say foot and picture shows feet etc). I’m waiting for french curriculum to be released for Little Reader.

If you have any questions, just let me know :slight_smile:

Regards

3

Thanks for your reply! your children sound very lucky to have all these languages surrounding them :slight_smile:

I guess one thing I am concerned about is that my mother in law has always spoken English to my daughter. If she suddenly just starts speaking French to her, is that going to be a little odd? I thought maybe if she eased into it, but I don’t know how you ease into things like this :slight_smile: or maybe she should say something in French, and then in English etc? I don’t know whether this would help or hinder. I just don’t want to confuse my daughter at this peak time of language acquisition

4

We spoke to our daughter mostly Russian until she was about 24 months old. She watched LR, and lots of educational programs in English, but never used any words. Then, I decided, I’m wasting valuable time. And we started speaking English at home for several hours a day. Please, understand, our English is far from perfect, and I’m very concerned that she’ll learn bad pronunciation, but I want her to know English. It was hard for her the first week and if I saw that she does not understand, I tried to show her, what I’m saying, and if it did not work, I had to translate. In 1 or 2 weeks she started to speak English phrases. I’m very happy with that!
If someone can speak foreign language to a child, do not loose your time! Children pick it up so easily, I wish I had such an opportunity when I was a child. Some cartoons and songs in French during the week will help, but her Grandmother speaking French to her, is thousand times more important than any educational software. It’s best to start speaking as with a new born child, pointing to things and naming them, and the child will more likely answer in English, but soon she’ll pick it up. Sooner than you can imagine. It’s a game for the kids, but a very difficult subject for adults. Do not hesitate!!!

5

I also think you have a great opportunity. If the person is embarrassed it can be a problem but I think that it will be hard only in the beginning.

6

Thanks for your comments.

I asked my MIL again about it last night and she is willing to try but she wants more guidance on what to do exactly.

Do I just tell her to speak to my daughter in French as much as possible, but offer an English translation if my daughter gets frustrated and can’t understand? Should she name things in English and then in French for nouns my daughter already knows? Or just speak French in a conversational manner with no emphasis on anything in particular?

7

I think your MIL can simply speak French, without translating.

8

Ok thanks. I will let her know and see how see goes on Thursday, which is the day they spend the whole day together each week.

Her husband doesn’t speak French so there will definitely be portions of English through out the day. And he will be speaking in English the whole time too of course. But hopefully she eases into it and is not so nervous. She actually teaches a class of students in French, so I’m not sure why she is so apprehensive about this. I guess she doesn’t want to do anything wrong. I will say that any exposure is good exposure :slight_smile:

9

I hope she speaks with no problem. The first day will be odd but with time everything will be ok.
Community language is very appealing. As I said here in a post and also in a topic on nnsparents.com, my father first language is Japanese but he raised me with Portuguese. The same happened with my wife. Her parents first language is German.

I have a friend that is an American, but he lives here in Brazil. He find it hard to speak English with his kid if no knew else does.

10

I would suggest grandma starts easily with your daughter – by introducing a few French words at a time – not to overwhelm and surprise her too much. Also, she may say – ‘now I will say a few words in French’ … translation is good, too, in the beginning, while the child gets used to the new language.

I have raised my daughter bilingually in English and Romanian (we’re Romanian, living in Romania, but my English is native-like).
When daughter was 3.5 yrs old, I’ve added a bit of French.
Here’s how we did it, and maybe you can use some ideas with your daughter, during grandma time, and not only.

I registered to our local Alliance Francaise center — do you have one in you city? it has loads of resources for kids.
I got easy board books for kids - and each day we would go over them - pointing to the pictures and words - I would say the word in French — just a few minutes at a time.
You can also reinforce these new words by playing themes – like playing with farm animals and reinforcing the French names for them.

Then, after learning some basic vocabulary, I started reading her short easy board books for kids — I would first read a sentence in French, then translate it. When we would re-read the same story, the next day, I would read only in French (once I made sure she knew the meaning of the sentence). This way, she would grasp more out of context.

My daughter loves music, i found lots of ‘comptines’ on youtube.
Here’s a great collection, you will find these on youtube as well: http://comptines.tv/

I put a list of a few resources and articles on my blog, maybe you can find something useful in it: http://ourenglishhomeschool.blogspot.ro/p/french-learning.html

The target i would suggest is for grandma to speak only in French at some point – but start slowly at first, not to scare away both grandma and little girl as well :slight_smile:
Best of luck, let us know how things go!

11

thanks for your reply.

I do like the idea of starting slowly. And using the themes whilst playing

It seems we do have a Alliance Francaise centre in my city and they have children’s classes etc, but starting from 3yo. I might get my MIL to enquire about them, as she is a French teacher for another group. It would be good to see what resources are available

Where did you buy your board books from?

I will check out the youtube link and your blog for more information

thanks!

12

Honestly, I borrowed as much as I could from our Alliance Francaise - definetely go check if you can borrow kids stuff from yours. They have board books, easy ones, lots of music cds too. And I can borrow 8 books/Cds at a time.
Ours also offers free activities for toddlers with French native speakers each week.

Some other French bilingual blogs worth checking: http://babybilingual.blogspot.com/ and http://non-nativebilingualadventure.blogspot.com/

13

Randomly came across this today and thought it might be of use to you as well:
http://kidworldcitizen.org/2014/01/09/french-cartoons-kids/