Husband is fluent french but no teaching patience

[treestarfae]

How do I get him to slow down and teach the basics. He grew up with the Parisian dialect and we still visit family in France. I need more cooperation from him but he's a grunting marine. What can I use with him to speak and teach the basics? Where do we start? Thanks

[Reya]

You can see if your MIL will teach via phone, instead. That's what I'm doing!

[treestarfae]

The mom is american in the states and too busy to translate. Grampa is in Paris but doesn't know enough English. I'm looking for a guide hubby can start with to teach. I have a personal teacher but he doesn't know what the best way to begin would be.

[Reya]

Well, I'd have your back for Mandarin, but not for French, I fear! See if you can hunt down Cleo for suggestions...

[Rosie_0801]

How about you put hubby in charge of reading? He might find it a bit easier to teach rules or vocab as they come up, rather than sitting down with a workbook to deliberately teach. Give him a pencil so he can make notations while he's reading, that way you can make up flashcards or something to drill the vocab later on. After a few years of this immersion style, they might be able to use a self teaching program for grammar, and have him help them correct it.

Rosie

[asta]

I'm fluent in French. My son wouldn't listen to a word I said. His teachers told me he wouldn't (I hadn't believed them). He was in Belgian school at the time. Turns out they were correct.

In my case, as they said, it was not my mother tongue, kid knew that, and was responding accordingly. I don't know if this is or is not the case with your husband, but if it is, I'd fall back on what the Belgian teachers said. When kid was in German school (his first school) he wouldn't speak German with dad, either.

My advice is to hire a tutor. It seems counter-intuitive, when you have a French speaker in the house, but it really is the only way to do it until he gets to the point that he can talk to the relatives.


asta

[CleoQc]

How old are the kids trying to learn French?

If they're pretty young, I would simply have Dad read aloud in French. That's what I did with my two kids (they're fluent in English now so it worked). At first I translated everything. Then I stopped translating, and started asking leading questions instead. Have we seen this word before? Oh look, it was on that page! Do you remember what it meant? etc..

With picture books, it's much easier. The kids get used to the language in a gentle way, and there's no real teaching.

Btw, if your kids learn to read in French first, the knowledge will transfer to English. I was never taught phonics, nor did I teach my kids. English spelling comes naturally. I have an acquaintance who had her kids learn to read in Spanish (a completely phonetic language) even though they were learning Spanish at the same time. Those kids transferred the knowledge to French and English without a glitch.

[treestarfae]

Hubby grew up in Paris until age 7, K and 1st grade and lived there every summer after that growing up. This is native tongue for him. He still speaks weekly with family and even talks french in his sleep lol. He just speaks very fast and it's hard to catch on. I like the questions idea. My kids would like that. I have 2nd grade and K here and trying to get some basics for a trip in July and hopefully to communicate on phone calls. Thanks!

[yvonne]

Ask him to read children's books to the kids. My 7 yo loves Pierre Probst's Caroline series (http://www.amazon.fr/Caroline-%C3%A0-mer-Pierre-Probst/dp/2010104013/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1270769817&sr=8-1). They are cute and funny. (Avoid the newest editions with the ugly illustrations.)

yvonne

[Kate in Arabia]

My dh is a fluent Arabic speaker. He is not able to give the consistency needed to formally "teach" the kids, his main job is "immersion". He reads to them, will speak to them in Arabic interspersed with English; point out things in Arabic; play games with them and, for example, use Arabic terms for numbers or colors (like in Candyland), etc. Nothing is scripted, just spontaneous.

Now that my kids have some fluency he now watches Arabic cartoons with them; sometimes he translates a word here and there, but mostly it's just him interacting with them and the program. My boys like the action cartoons, like Spyder Ryders, Fantastic 4, etc., so dh watches with them and they make comments and whatnot, like you do when you watch tv.

He makes a vital contribution to their language acquisition, but it is not the traditional teaching. I do the textbook/workbook parts, he does the immersion parts.

hth!