Moving to France with a 13year old girl

[The Riff-Raff Element]

[quote user="wen"]

it is my understanding that, in the UK, students from 11 years of

age MUST learn a foreign language. Which did you learn...Spanish or

German, if French, why can you not speak a word?. 

[/quote]

Yeah, but no, but yeah, but no....Wen, I'm sorry to say that the

education system that spawned me hasn't, for a large part of the

population, got much interest in serious foreign language education.

There are three chief reasons for this:

1) Most of the rest of the world speaks English;

2) Foreign languages are difficult;

3) See 1 above.

I know that other people's experiences vary and that there are plenty

of success stories out there, but in any case I agree with you:

personally I would not want to move a teenager here unless I was

convinced that from day one they would be able to cope at school in

France. That would thin down the field a bit.

I've made this point (when invited to, I hasten to add) on more than

one occasion, and I've been surprised how frequently people get very

defensive, almost angry, as though I am spinning them a line to try and

keep them from moving in on my corner of nirvana (yes, I know that

nirvana is a state of mind not a place, but you get the idea). I

confess that at social occasions I now simply go all evasive on the

subject if asked. Cowardly, perhaps, but I can no longer be bothered

with the almost  inevitable upset.

[Wendy]

Yes Jon, the thing is you only seem to ever hear about the success stories here and they are always so glowing! The other side of the coin can be real hardship. I was under the impression that it was compulsory to do a foreign language as part of the school curriculum in the UK...

[timc17]

Wen,

I think you've got it totally wrong as far as the UK's concerned. As from the start of the last school year the compulsory learning of a foreign language to GCSE level was scrapped which resulted in hundreds of language teachers losing their jobs.

[KathyC]

Even if someone has taken a GCSE in a language, this will not indicate any ability in using it, or give much of a foundation to build on in the future. Unless a student has a facility for languages, GCSE means nothing. Apologies to any language teachers here, I know it's the fault of the syllabus rather than the teaching, but the state of language learning in the UK at present is generally appalling.

[YCCMB]

Has anyone seen the GCSE French exam papers recently?? Quite honestly,  if that's all that's expected of a 16-year-old, I'd hardly regard it as a firm foundation for moving to a French school.

From a completely different perspective, my oldest and dearest (English) friend, who has lived in France for 30 years, and has 3 children, has just seen her eldest daughter (20) get her first job................in England. Miki has a very valid point. It's not just the years spent in France and the French education system that matter, it's what happens after. Never say never.

[Kali3]

Interesting debate. Moving a young teenager is probably going to be tough on them and on you but I don't think you can generalise. Whether teenagers  can move successfully or not will depend on their attitude and their ability. A bright child of 13 with a positive attitude and a helpful school (very important!) may catch up in 1-2 years. I probably wouldn't move a child with academic aspirations any later than about 13 though. And if a child is struggling in a UK school, how much more will they struggle in France.

I would be open to moving them back for 6th form. If they've moved out to France at 12 or 13, their level of English is going to be good enough.

[Josephine79]

Wen, your experience is not ours.

In the Deux Sèvres (and Vendee, where I think Alison said she might be moving is only just across the border) there are many English speaking children in the colleges and lycées, including Dan.

In the lycée in my own town there is a regular influx of them. Some have been here a while and speak the language to a greater or lesser extent, but there are also  pupils with ZERO French. Not necessarily because their parents moved here, there are also Rotary exchanges etc. They come from Sweden, Australia Japan and the US as well as the UK.

Obviously how well they do depends on their motivation, but it is perfectly possible to come here, go to lycée and learn the language in the space of a year. Some youngsters may prefer to re-do the year for the content once they have mastered the language, but not all have to.

Dan: thank you for sharing your experience with us, maybe I'll see you around!

Jo

[Kali3]

I wondered whether teenagers from UK schools find the teaching style in French colleges a little - erm - how shall I put it - dry? Would be interested to hear others' views with children who moved as teens. My kids found CM1/CM2 shockingly old-fashioned (really boring was their verdict) after their UK primary experiences - masses of uncontextualised conjugaison, unexciting texts to read, gap-fill history. We could live without the smart boards the the computers, it was the general approach they found unstimulating. On the other hand, their current UK secondary school is not perfect either - the problem there is that expectations are low, so who knows, they might have been better off in France.

[roz]

Hi Alison,

 

My first thing to say to you is to stop worrying and be positive about your move with your daughter!  I moved here (to the Dordogne) last December with my daughters then aged 12 and 14.  With some trepidation I might add!  They came from an all-girls Public School in Dorset to a mixed school in the middle of the city of Angouleme.  Quite a change in itself - quite apart from the fact they were the only English children in the whole school.  I think what you should do is something that worked for us.  That is to visit the school and speak to the Head and let your daughter choose which school she is happy with.  There is a large choice and not only to decide on the College but also on the Lycee that she will attend.  Also look into the choice of subjects available.  Consider whether she is doing Spanish, for instance, at her school in UK.  Most of all talk to her and make sure that she also wants to move.  Don't hesitate if you want to know any more of the probs. we encountered along the way and how we coped with them.  Or if your interested in the highs!!  Best of luck, R.

[Wendy]

Josephine,  Roz, if you move to an English 'ghetto', i.e. Dordogne, Normandy, Brittany, Limousin, or,  anywhere north of Dept 66, then fully expect your children to be accepted, assisted and welcomed into ANY school in that area. Regardless of how crap they, or you,  speak french. However, come down to Dept 66 where the Brits, Dutch, Germans, etc, are only JUST moving in and you will find a completely different attitude. Here, we have found, that the general consensus is..."We didin't invite you to move here, so don't expect us to help you!". I have just spoken to an Immobilier Agent (British) who covers the Ceret area and he told us that the locals just absolutely despise the British coming here, and quite a few (Brits) are buying in that area right now.  I dont know why this attitude exists here, but, if anyone in Dept 66 has had a more positive experience then PLEASE post your views.

In all, it depends WHERE you move in France as to how well your kids will settle. Dont expect ALL of France to be welcoming.

 

[timc17]

[quote user="wen"]

Josephine, if you move to an English 'ghetto', i.e. Dordogne, Normandy, Brittany, Limousin, or,  anywhere north of Dept 66, then fully expect your children to be accepted, assisted and welcomed into ANY school in that area. Regardless of how crap they, or you,  speak french. However, come down to Dept 66 where the Brits, Dutch, Germans, etc, are only JUST moving in and you will find a completely different attitude. Here, we have found, that the general consensus is..."We didin't invite you to move here, so don't expect us to help you!". I have just spoken to an Immobilier Agent (British) who covers the Ceret area and he told us that the locals just absolutely despise the British coming here, and quite a few (Brits) are buying in that area.

In all, it depends where you move here as to how well your kids will settle.

 

[/quote]

As you're enjoying it so much you'll be moving soon then!

[Wendy]

You have hit the nail right on the head!.  This country is completely screwed.

[mascamps.com]

 

 

Wen

[The Riff-Raff Element]

[quote user="Josephine79"]

In the Deux Sèvres (and Vendee, where I think Alison said she might be

moving is only just across the border) there are many English speaking

children in the colleges and lycées, including Dan.

In the lycée in

my own town there is a regular influx of them. Some have been here a

while and speak the language to a greater or lesser extent, but there

are also  pupils with ZERO French. Not necessarily because their

parents moved here, there are also Rotary exchanges etc. They come from

Sweden, Australia Japan and the US as well as the UK.

Obviously how

well they do depends on their motivation, but it is perfectly possible

to come here, go to lycée and learn the language in the space of a

year. Some youngsters may prefer to re-do the year for the content once

they have mastered the language, but not all have to

[/quote]

Maybe somewhere in the Vendée, but not here in the South. There may be

a few shekels from the Mairie to pay for a few hours tuition, but the

schools are very nonplussed about having students who can't speak a

word of French. Up to collège they have little choice but to lump it -

they are obliged to educate. But once past 16, you're on your own. The

reason is simple: rural French eductaion just doesn't have the

resources. In larger towns and areas with a significant English

speaking populations perhaps things are different.

[mascamps.com]

Josephine79, the key difference is that there are ALREADY non-French speakers in the schools in your area.

The primary and college nearest us have no non-French speakers. They quite simply refuse to accept any. In fact, that appears to be the case for all such schools in our area which don't already have non-French speakers.

The story was completely different when we went to a college much further away but in an area with a reasonable number of foreigners living there. No problem. They, of course, already had something like a half-dozen non-French speakers going to the school.

In fact, we were told by the authorities that if you are not fluent in French by age 16, then they have no facilities for you. Local schools all direct you to Inspection Academic but our local IA cannot actually test the educational level of a non-French speaker so that's a dead end and you cannot be accepted in a lycee locally without a certificate from them.

I do agree that kids can, with the appropriate motivation, be fluent fairly quickly. I'm well beyond childhood but managed to go from about GCSE level to fluency in under three years so it's certainly doable. However, that presupposes that the schools will actually accept the children in the first place. In this area, they won't.

 

Arnold

 

[ro]

Hello

Unfortunately I don't have a magic wand. There are lots of questions to ask yourself. Is she academic?Into drama? A loner? Has lots of friends?

 

I have 3 girls my eldest was 10 when we moved over.We had her parents/prof night on Tuesday. She was a high achiever in UK. On Tuesday the profs said she is a great student and works hard and will get there! But is average over here.

She loved drama and reading  in England( we spend a fortune with Amazon on books ) Her English  prof (who taught in England for 15 years) is excited to have her and gives her creative writing excercises and book reviews. It looks like she is a lover of the English and always will be.Despite this she prefers to be in France.

It has not been easy and my point is there is no formula to say who will succeed and who won't. We are all different

Good Luck

[Garlic]

Please don't shout at me but I do live in an area with a virtually non existant incoming population all though there are more here than when we arrived there was an 'english' kid in the college but he had lived here since he was 8mths old.

My kids were the first non French speakers pretty much that the schools had to deal with. At primaire my daughter didn't get any help but I guess that was because they knew they'd hand her on to college the following term. This is a poor rural area and even so they have found finance and arranged stuff so my two did get language support for the first two years which for them was enough. They were 13 and 11 when we arrived.

Eldest is now at lycee and although there is a european section (courses taught in English) he's quite happy in the normal section (all taught in French). Someone mentioned keeping up English skills and this is a challenge, my daughters English writing and grammar leave a lot to be desired but the work load in college is hard and fitting in 'extra' English is difficult on top of her normal homework.

I think it is probably very important (with the benefit of hindsight) to explore educational issues before coming from this conversation it's obvious that people have very different experiences. Maybe also bear in mind your own ability to help your children for us we really struggle understanding their homework and that's a problem sometimes.

As an aside I just got back from the hospital A&E because my littlest had a very nasty fall and so we dashed her off there fearing skull fractures. Thank god I've learnt French since I got here (not perfect but it works!) I was just talking with the doctor and was so relieved that I understood what he was saying and only had to get him to repeat one thing once...Whatever else learn French!

[roz]

Hi Wen,

 

Sorry about your experience BUT I have to say that although there are many Brits here in the Dordogne - the college/lycee where my girls are at school did not provide ANY help at all for them when they started.  Unlike many others around here.  It also took us rather a long time to find someone to teach them French independently.  However, having said that we chose the school because it was friendly and we liked the approach of the Head Master.  It got my eldest daughter into Lycee in just two terms!!  PS which is dept. 66????

[roz]

Hi Wen,

 

Sorry about your experience BUT I have to say that although there are many Brits here in the Dordogne - the college/lycee where my girls are at school did not provide ANY help at all for them when they started.(Probably as they were the only Brits. attending).  -   Unlike many others around here.  It also took us rather a long time to find someone to teach them French independently.  However, having said that we chose the school because it was friendly and we liked the approach of the Head Master.  It got my eldest daughter into Lycee in just two terms!!  PS which is dept. 66????

[Wendy]

Hi Roz, I think it would have helped us if we had encountered 'friendly' Head Masters (Lycees) here. The one's we approached, and we approached many, swung between hostile and uninterested. At three schools we couldnt even get past the female on the desk. Im glad your girls were at least given a go to see how they would cope. Not in our case Im sorry to say. When we finally went to see a certain very highly placed lady (apparently she had the final say) at IA in Perpignan she was actually quite rude and told us she was not interested in helping us and that she was acting to protect the interests of 'her schools'. Now work that one out!. Not a good state of affairs and not a nice way to treat people who are doing their best to integrate. Anyway, my advice to the original poster is to check ahead as to where your children will be accepted before you settle.

[mascamps.com]

In the final lycee that we tried, the headmaster was very positive about the whole thing. That one supposedly runs weekly classes for French as a foreign language so is quite used to having foreigners attending.

He said that all we needed to do was to write a letter of motivation with a CV and he'd see us in September (this was in Feb/March this year). In the meantime he could go to the French for foreigners class to get up to speed with the language and probably attend a few proper school classes after a while. We also needed to go to Inspection Academic for the test of his academic abilities; as noted above they can't actually test a non-French speaker as it turns out.

Well, we went every week for about 6 weeks straight to the class for foreigners. Every week we were told a different room and every week it wasn't there. We gave up on that after 6 weeks and suspect that the class is no longer run.

We sent the letter of motivation etc. and then went down to enroll later in the year. The admin people told us that it was too late, they were full and had never received the letter of motivation earlier in the year. This, despite them having called us earlier in the year to query something in it (in fact, the same lady who told us that she'd not received it was the one who called).

So, no go on that front.

In this area, schools with no non-French speakers simply won't take such children. Those who already have non-French speakers will take them to College level but can't accept them beyond that without a certificate from the IA people which never arrives because they aren't capable of producing it for a non-French speaker.

I'm less than impressed at the education of those actually in IA too. The lady who finally turned us down didn't even know that French was spoken as the official language in countries outside France!

Dept 66 is Pyrenees-Orientales.

 

Arnold

 

[mascamps.com]

One thing that's clear from this whole thread is that the treatment of non-French speakers is very different in the various areas of France which is something that we had never even considered before moving here.

It's obviously going to be easier to settle into an area where there are already brits in residence although, to my mind, that can sometimes make it feel like you're living in "far southern England". We notice that any time we travel to other areas like the Dordogne where some of the villages almost have the feel of a village in England which is something that you don't feel here.

Although you mightn't want to live in "far southern England", I think if we were doing the move again, we'd have a look to see if there were any non-French speakers in the local schools first. I don't know if it's the case in all areas where there are few non-French speakers, but it certainly is the case here that you will have problems getting kids into Primary school (6-11) and College (11-16) and simply won't get them into the lycee (17-18).

 

Arnold

 

[Artois]

Our daughter was 13 when we moved over 2 years ago and she started at a local french school. Although she was held back a year she had a tough time as she was expected to study French Literature amongst other things. She had been doing well in the UK and we felt so guilty at her unhappiness.

We moved her to an International School the following year and we have not looked back. She is now  a year ahead of her UK friends. She is a weekly boarder which suits her but would not be right for many children. We also have to find the money to pay the international fees which is an expense we had not envisaged.

Our sons on the other hand were 10 when we moved over and fitted in quickly, making friends and developing a fluency of spoken French in about 9 months.They enjoyed their last year of primary. However since starting at college they have been struggling with the written French which obviously affects all subjects. We have had behavioural problems as they were placed in the same class and we had to ask for them to be separated. We have homework battles as they are tired when they arrive home. We feel they could be doing better at school but they are not encouraged. Most of the staff are very caring but at the end of the day these children are the children of farmers many will continue in the family tradition and their education expectations are not necessarily the same. With our boys their English is deteriorating and we are concerned that they have missed some key years of the education system ie the last year of primary and the first two of secondary education. We are looking at a possible return to the UK next September hoping they will be able to catch up. Not an idea we ourselves relish but we have to do what is right for them.

I wish you all the best with your difficult decision.

 

 

[mascamps.com]

Artois, you raise an interesting question which is, for the most part, totally ignored by people moving here ie the development of the english of their children.

I personally think that you're right to be concerned about your children catching up with english again if you return to the UK. Aside from between ourselves, we don't speak english at all for the majority of the year and with that, I noticed that it took a little while for me to get used to speaking it again in shops etc. when I was over a month or so back. It's obviously going to be more difficult for children who've not had a lifetime of speaking english behind them.

Some things I'd do if I were you would be:

1. get UK TV, if you don't have it already, and encourage your children to watch it. That might sound like an easy thing but as their english is behind a little, it won't be quite so easy I suspect.

2. try and get a supply of UK kids magazines in the subjects that they're interested in.

3. likewise for books, though that will be harder as it will almost be like reading a foreign language for them.

I'm not sure how viable it would be, but I'd be thinking of getting the textbooks that they'd be using in the first couple of years of secondary school and going over those with them. Alternatively, look into bilingual (or international) schools for your sons too. I gather that bilingual schools are a good deal less common than international ones in France; I understand that they're considerably cheaper but, to my mind, they are better in principle.

 

Arnold

 

[roz]

Hi again Wen,

 

You were really very unlucky.  I have to say to you and everyone else that unless you have the full co-operation of the school (even if they can't offer any aide for French) : give them a wide berth.  It will only go from bad to worse.  In our case, after we had our first meeting with the new Head our minds were fully made up.  Having gone in to see him still sitting on the fence we felt  a huge relief coming out of the school.  The stress of making a decision had gone.  He took about 1 hour talking to us and about 1 hr showing the girls around the school and where they would put backpacks etc. the following term. We still have nothing for admiration for him.  The girls were keen to start the following term (in Jan.) and approached it with a very positive attitude.  I hope that could be the case for all children starting school in France  -  it's vital ! !