My eight-year-old and his first university course

[Whitworth]

I knew the title would get your attention! :coolgleamA:

Based on the information from awtl, I checked out the free French course from the Open Learning Initiative offered by Carnegie Melon. http://bit.ly/e1tby

I'm doing the French Carnegie-Mellon Open Initiative courses, and it seems that it is mostly, if not all, Quebecois French. http://oli.web.cmu.edu/openlearning/forstudents/freecourses/french

Ds and I completed several exercises from Leçon 1 last evening. I found it to be a well planned, engaging course. He was a bit sceptical at first, however, after the first exercise he announced, "I already know this Dad." So with a roll of the eyes he confidently swiped the mouse from my hand. We are considering a weekly class for ds with other children at the local Alliance Français and I very well may consider utilizing this resource as a supplement.

By the way, could someone perhaps link an example of a Quebecois dialect from one of the videos?


Merci à l'avance!

John

[Whitworth]

I'm learning French along with ds, so we'll see how this works out for him. I'll see what his new teacher will recommend. He hasn't started writing in French yet, but he has started reading. The videos are nice because he can see people interacting in the language.

We started with BBC Schools Primary French (http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/primaryfrench/index_html.shtml) and he has had fun with that. He's also enjoyed the games on Instant Immersion French (http://www.amazon.com/TOPICS-Entertainment-80596-Instant-Immersion/dp/B0007YEPWS/ref=sr_1_11?s=software&ie=UTF8&qid=1306587788&sr=1-11). I picked that up for a few dollars at Half Price Books. We'll also watch movies such as "Madagascar" or "Up" and put on the French subtitles.

Lucky for us, his hockey coach is from Montréal! So far ds has been a little shy speaking with him.

[matroyshka]

That looks great! :) Boo hiss that the only language they offer seems to be French - where's Spanish?? :(

[Whitworth]

Матрёшка,

I just had to type your name in Russian because, well, it just looks cool. If ds and I were not concentrating on French I would've seriously considered Russian. For tha past six months I've done a bit of Russian study just for personal interest. I've previously studied German and I may consider adding a third language to his curriculum.

There has to be a free on-line university course in Spanish......somewhere.


всего хорошего! (all the best)

John

[CleoQc]

I've listened to a few videos, and even the guy who claims he's from Quebec does not have a Quebecois accent!!