My thoughts on learning French in our school

The only foreign language we offer at our school is currently French. We have a very specific way of learning it that certainly isn't the way it is traditionally taught in India, it appears to me.

In the early years - grade 1 and grade 2 the French we teach is almost entirely oral. This has proven to be potentially annoying to kids and parents since we not only lack text books but we don't even have note books! In fact most of the first few years when you learn a new language should be about speaking and pronunciation. This holds true for young kids and not adults, of course. Doing it otherwise leads you straight to the Indian trap of foreign language learning. Let me explain.

Whenever i get a new student from another school in India i am at first super intimidated and impressed with their French notebooks. I usually ask them to bring it to give me an idea of how far have they gone with French. Numbers till 100 seems to be like a standard for a very first year of French. Long lists of nouns belonging to different topics like colors, fruits and animals. It doesn't take long to see that all that written work suddenly appears totally useless because the student is unable to read or pronounce any of it. They explain to me that all they did was copy words from the board. The notebook might be impressive for the non French speaking parents - giving them a sense that a lot is done in the class - but clearly that is not the reality.

I had students from higher grades who could translate basic sentences and even spell the words out for me in English but could not pronounce any of those words. I thought that was outrageous! I would tolerate it if it was a dead language like Latin but French is very much alive. The best part of why I like French is because it sounds so sophisticated and melodious. It is a beautiful language that ought to be spoken! 

When you hear yourself read or speak in French you feel good about learning that language. It is crystal clear that motivation is a major issue when learning a language you have no exposure to. Not many parents speak French to help kids at home. There are no kid's appropriate TV channels in French or radio or anything else for that matter so apart from hearing it in school they don't hear it anywhere else. It is imperative then to hear it in school a lot. We do it through songs, stories, drama, role play and reciting.

So if it is all about singing, reciting, role play, drama for grades 1 and 2, we introduce written work in grade 3. Very less for the 3rd language and substantially more for the 2nd language students. Grade 5 and above will then enter a more traditional way of learning the language with text books and all. Exceptions to this would be students who join us at this stage with no previous exposure to French. By the fifth grade children will have enough of spoken French in their ears to make a smooth transition to written French. French uses same alphabets as English but it is pronounced very differently. 

A student who will learn French with us from grade 1 will be very much able to read French texts in grade 5. I am absolutely sure of it. This is of course linked to the fact that students have to actually stay with us long enough to benefit fully but that is a different topic all together - the problem of frequent school hopping is a big topic worthy of a separate post.

Let me just conclude this post with a short video. Last years clip - grade 3, 2nd language students singing a French song while doing a weather wheel chart. It was done very spontaneous by students so i missed the beginning of the song. But this is what French in our school is all about. We want to hear it!