Learning a Foreign Language - Part 2

Hi, welcome back to Part 2. I'm linking up with the Charlotte Mason blog carnival, and the current theme is Foreign Language. If you missed Part 1 you can find it here.

Teaching a Foreign Language in Homeschool

I mentioned in Part 1 that, alongside Russian, we are also learning French. Now, I'd like to stress at the outset that we don't do this as regularly as we should in our homeschool, and I'm still investigating materials, but I'd like to share with you what we do and what I've learned so far.

Now, I possibly have a slight advantage over the average homeschooling mother in this area in that, before going overseas, my husband and I attended an SIL course on Language and Culture Acquisition, which involved learning how to go about learning a local language with limited resources. We used the method we had learned reasonably successfully to learn the local language where we live (not Russian) and I believe the method can translate (forgive the pun!) very well to the homeschool classroom.

Having read a little of Charlotte Mason's views on Foreign Language learning, I can see that her preferred method (the Gouin method) has a lot in common with our method: Total Physical Response (or TPR for short). Namely:

• It is most important to hear, listen and understand the language at first (by not requiring speaking you reduce stress).
• Then you gradually learn to speak it, using certain phrases over and over again and adding vocabulary.
• Finally, reading and writing should come last.

In fact, TPR is based very much on the way that children learn languages. So much so that they encourage you not to speak a word in the first month that you're learning, rather like a child spends up to 2 years just soaking in the language before it attempts to form the words itself.

Why is it called Total Physical Response, I hear you ask? Well, the idea is that the best way to learn new words and phrases is to do so in a context which involves physical movement, for example acting out verbs, or choosing between objects and pointing to them.

Here's how a typical lesson in our homeschool might go:

• I decide we're going to learn, for example, 6 different colours.
• I find 6 different objects, each coloured one of the colours in question.
• Using puppets (which just makes it more fun, and the kids love it!) I point to each colour and clearly say the name in French several times.
• I then call out a colour and Sophie and Charis have to point to it, or remove the object.
• They are not required to say the words themselves, just to understand them and react accordingly.
• We do learn certain greetings, such as 'Hello', 'How are you?', and role play those. 
• We also learn 'power phrases' such as 'What's that?' and 'Repeat that please', which the children can use if necessary.
• In addition, we listen to and learn some French children's songs, and read through some books in French, and occasionally watch a DVD.

Here are some resources I use for French:

Another resource I use is this website.  I'm currently working through the vocabulary suggested in the teachers guide, and then when we're ready we'll watch the corresponding film on the computer. The girls love the theme tune!

This is also a great site for finding and learning French songs.  

Finally, if you're interested to learn more about TPR, go here.

In conclusion, please bear in mind that my eldest is only 7 years old. This is what works for us now, but I'd be interested to read about other people's suggestions for resources for older students.

Abide in Him!