French
FRENCH
It has been lovely to return to school and hear the children continue to read, converse and create using the French language.
Sid and Mimi have returned to class along with many of their new friends – an odd bunch to say the least – and why is the sheep called Moo? – (ask the children).
KINDERGARTEN
The kinder children have made incredible progress this year and it is not uncommon for them to be muttering away to each other in French during their play. They are able to interchange between English and French with ease and their accents put us all to shame.
“Madame Suzanne, I was riding my bike and then oh no, I tombe.”
We have now added prepositions to our word banks, with the clear favourite à côte de (next to) with derrière a close run second. Introducing the children at such an early age to the language of grammar, such as verbs and prepositions, makes them very comfortable with hearing these terms.
THE LIGHTHOUSE
Returning to school has found us revising what we have learnt this year combined with adding some new knowledge. Our new words
mignon and pas mignon have been popular along with discussions around whether we all have to think the same. See if you can guess what the word might mean by looking at the pictures below – which one is mignon and which one is pas mignon – do we all agree?
Unfortunately, Sid has not profited from the time away from school to improve his French so thank goodness the Lighthouse are always ready to come to his aid. They are incredibly patient and encouraging with him and are wonderful teachers.
THE LOFTIES
The Lofties continue to amaze me with their French understandings and ability to make connections across their learning. They have now moved on from listening and speaking French to reading and creating. We have introduced some simple, repetitive readers using familiar language in a story context. One of these prompted Aliah to have a go at writing her own story about Dumpling le chat. Being able to manipulate a language for your own purposes really demonstrates how far the Lofties have come.
THE SUNROOM & PEPPERCORNS
Learning French is not only about learning the French language – it is about exploring language in general. It is exciting to have conversations in class and make discoveries about the origins of language and the similarities and differences. We are encouraged to develop knowledge that we can then transfer from one situation to another.
The children are now using their bank of vocabulary knowledge to understand more and more French in different contexts. We continue to watch a variety of French speaking videos and the children should be proud of how much they are now understanding.
Le jour de Muzzy continues to be a favourite day when we go on adventures with Muzzy, le grand alien vert qui aime manger les horloges. Recently we made an interesting discovery – we watched an episode in French, and then watched a fraction of the episode in American English. It sounded all wrong - we were so accustomed to the French voices that anything else was just not quite right.
Suzanne Banfield
French Language Teacher