des ponts, des boucles....

[Deby]

Last week my 5 year old (Grande Section) came home from school very pleased with herself. She showed me her workbook with pages and pages and pages of her efforts at school!  Each day I had been asking her what she does and she would say les ponts, les boucles.  Now I could see what she meant! She is just drawing pages of the stuff all in an attempt to learn (or should I say reproduce) to do joined up writing. She has to be incredibly precise (explains why all french writing is amazingly similar).  She also flew through her reading book announcing everything she could read, but only she can't - she just memorises everything and repeats it.  There is no attempt at learning to read just the concious effort to teach them to write perfectly before they can learn to read.  I am to say at the least disgruntled, I know we do things different in France and am not sure whether it is the same in all schools, but more to do with the style of teaching preferred by the teacher. 

I am frustrated to say the least and will continue to teach my daughter to think for herself so that she can learn to learn.  

Deby

[Brian -there must be a way]

My son is also 5 years old and in maternelle.  What you have described is pretty accurate for him too.  I have had two other children in the English education system from the age of 5 and although the content of the school day is totally different I would say that the intentions are broadly similar. But, and it's a big but, school in France will never be attempting to help a child think for itself.  That's where all foreign children score not just the English ones.  They come from backgrounds where survival of the fittest means you have to learn to problem solve.  Don't forget, French schools are attempting to deliver good little citizens into the community.  In my opinion our kids are lucky, they get the best of both worlds.  By the way, I would think that your daughter is learning to read.  Word recognition is an old fashioned but very tried and tested way of doing this, it's certainly the way I learned in Africa where I grew up.

Sue not Brian

[Richardbk]

she just memorises everything and repeats it.  There is no attempt at learning to read just the concious effort to teach them to write perfectly before they can learn to read.  I am to say at the least disgruntled, I know we do things different in France and am not sure whether it is the same in all schools, but more to do with the style of teaching preferred by the teacher. 

I am frustrated to say the least and will continue to teach my daughter to think for herself so that she can learn to learn.  

This is the french system - it is the same everywhere - all the way until post graduate. They are expected to regurgitate on demand exactly what they have been told - They are not expected to have  their own ideas and will never be 'taught to learn'.  I interview a lot of engineering graduates from all over Europe. The French (engineers) have strengths in structured deduction as long as the task has been described in great detail beforehand - they have little flexibility in terms of finding solutions ; lateral and innovative thinking is a great weakness.

BTW  - when they start to read at CP it will be the same - long texts of large words thrust under their noses that they will be expected to memorise. The teacher will expect that the parents contribute to this by ensuring that the paragraphs can be cited by memory.  It continues to amaze me how any French learn to read at all using this method - but then with high levels redoublement and school leavers with  no qualifications it seems that many simply do not .

regs

Richard

 

[Mistral]

A lot of this is graphisme, they need to learn how to hold a pencil well and do things like draw a straight line or a circle before they can go onto writing (which is a lot of lines and circles) I have no hassles with that.

What does annoy me is the amount of effort that has to go into making the right sort of lines and circles. My son's CP/CE1 teacher would underline ever single time his pen cut through the lines when he was writing. But then presentation is very important here. Points are given for good presentation.

If she is in GS, then she won't be learning to read yet, that isn't until CP, most GS classes concentrate on getting them to recognise the alphabet written the three ways (printed, capitals and joined up -all those horrible loops)and to write letters with the three styles. Personally I hate the time and effort wasted on loopy French handwriting because I see children spend hours getting the letters just so, and forget that the most important thing is content. I also have a problem with the fact that the letters are taught by name and not by sound, which makes learning to read harder

When my eldest learnt to read he learnt with a mostly phonetic system and he had to learn what sounds went with what letter combinations. He never had long lists of words to memorise (unless you include a poem a month) the second one was in CP last year, she learnt with a mostly "whole word" method, which was useless, but again, no long lists of words to memeorise. She had to reread the day's text with us, but that was all. On the other hand since it was  a "semi globale" method, she was expected to recognise the words and her method was to recite the text by heart like your daughter but that wasn't what the teacher expected.

Recitation is still important here, if your daughter's teacher is of the old school, then she will feel reassured by it. So will most of the parents, most of the parents at the school gate tell me they help their children to learn by getting them to learn things by heart. This is one of the problems with the start of collège. A lot of parents (and pupils) think that learbning the lesson by heart and then reciting it, is enough. It isn't, they have to know, understand and use it. I get very frustrated when I have pupils who can recite a grammar rule off to me and then when they start writing, just throw words together and hope.

[LesLauriers]

My daughter has been in CP since september. They are using the book 'Lire en CP'. At first they learnt to read by whole word recognition. They were then introduced to two or three letter sounds, components of common words, these are organised into 'gammes' which she learns in turn, for example li, lo, lu, la, ri, ro, ru, ra etc etc. In addition to this she is also 'rote' learning the obligatory french poems which have words in it that she cannot necessarily read for herself but which we learn together at home.

This system is working well for her and she is reading well.

S

[PaysBasque]

I don't have any problem at all with the way they learn to read here, as my eldest daughter was reading a book for herself before the end of CP and her little English friends who we saw throughout the year certainly weren't able to do that. Apart from that, to my knowledge, England is the only country that teaches with a phonetic system, and it is only a different approach, and not necessarily a better one.

I also second what Sue said, that our children actually are lucky because they have the best of both worlds. Our children learn what they are taught at school and when they come home we teach them to think for themselves.

[hoverfrog]

when I learnt to read (oh so many moons ago!) we were expected to learn my memorising - which is no different in my view to the flash cards they use (or is that used? I can't keep up!) in English schools.

My kids are between 2 and 22, and the fashions have come and gone. All I can say is that the phonetically taught ones spell less well than the others!

(and on an different subject, the fashions in UK for what you should and shouldn't do when pregnant / with a neo-natal have also gone round and round like the clothes fashions!)

[Richardbk]

I think a few have missed the point.  The system for reading in france is not simply about memorising words - I think many people learn to read like this. The issue is that the french system  throws large texts at children that have only just started to lean to read in CP. In the 4 schools we have used none have taught reading in a stepped progressive manner. There is an attitude of sink or swim (as with most of the system)- which is all very well for those of average or above ability but it causes great  problems for the other 50%.

regs

Richard

 

[Battypuss]

DD2 learnt by rote and read very well by the beginning of CP. The follwing yers, they changed the system and DD3 had to learn by the whole word method/phonetics (including using a puppet called Miko/Mika/something like that). DD3 got fed up, she didn't like the puppet character and thought it was childish. Both now read to the same standard, can't say I noticed any appreciable difference in the speed at which they learnt - apart from dd3's tantrums.

[Mistral]

Oh I am so glad to meet another Mika hater. Child #2 learnt with that system. I felt there was far too much emphasis on learning the texts and on recognising the "whole words". the phonetic (ok syllabique) bit came far too late. And, she didn't really like Mika either. She's the kind of child who is usually interested in other people/characters so I though it would interest her but, no. Child #1 learnt with abracadralire which started with whole words and  went on to syllabique breakdown very quickly. It was very strucutred and easy to follow whereas Mika wasn't very clear (I ended up buying the teachers' book but it didn't make it much clearer) Mika was new to the school last year, and this year they've got another method, so I obviously I wasn't the only one with doubts about it.

At the end of a year, they could both read. But at the end of the first term, #1 was managing to work out unknown words whereas #2 either knew words or didn't. She's in CE1 now and has taught herself to break words down into their relative parts, but last year was stressful and traumatic for all concerned. How much of this was personality I can't say.

[Rose]

My youngest son also learned with Mika (about 8 years ago) & disliked it. At the end of CP he couldn't read at all, despite having had help from an orthophoniste all that time. She also said it was a useless method & was really old. The CP teacher wasn't helpful - she just said he never listened so that was that.

At the start of CE1 I spoke to his new teacher who was sympathetic & promised that he'd be reading in a few weeks, and he was! Not only that by the next year he was reading fluently in English without being taught the English sounds. Spelling was another matter though & that didn't come till 6eme. Now at 13 his hobby is reviewing online computer games for the manufacturers, & his typing speed is fantastic. He also is on the writing staff for the new College newspaper, so they get there in the end!

Rose

[Mistral]

The CP teacher wasn't helpful - she just said he never listened so that was that.

I was told that too (it was true) My husband was also told she needed to see an orthophonist but the teacher didn't seem to be able to say why. When pushed,  she said she had problems with sounds but got confused when I asked if she meant recognising or producing them.

They only used Mika for one year, then the teacher went back to the maternelle to shout at the kids there at Mika went into the  cupboard

 

[Jo53]

[quote]Last week my 5 year old (Grande Section) came home from school very pleased with herself. She showed me her workbook with pages and pages and pages of her efforts at school! Each day I had been askin...[/quote]

She is just drawing pages of the stuff all in an attempt to learn (or should I say reproduce) to do joined up writing. ... I am frustrated to say the least and will continue to teach my daughter to think for herself so that she can learn to learn.  

My son is in CP, and has been in the French system since moyenne section. I was surprised at how little the children are challenged in the maternelle. My son had his hands full with learning the language, but had he been a native French speaker I think he would have been bored silly.

Now in CP they are starting to learn, but I have to say I feel wistful when I hear about what friends and cousins of the same age are doing at school in the UK. Writing stories, reading a different reading book every week, learning to use money, doing plays, having themes that they learn about (environment, local topics, whatever), covering the walls with things they've done. And their maths and reading a lot more advanced (well, the brighter ones anyway. No doubt for some it's too much too soon - I know that is a common criticism of the UK system.) Also they are given loads of encouragement - stars for good work or good behaviour, etc. The only markings on my son's books are when something is wrong, never a 'good' or a 'well done'.

When do French children actually start learning about the world, rather than perfecting their handwriting and grammar?  I don't think my son has ever learnt 'about' anything at school. Learning about things was what I loved as a child - I first knew I was fascinated by science when we learned something about dinosaurs and fossils at the age of 5 or 6. And I loved writing stories. Do they write stories in CE, once they can write?

Our school is very small and under-resourced. The teacher does try her best (unlike the one who was there last year). Are things more inspiring in larger schools, perhaps?

Jo

[Pucette<P><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3>Pucette<FONT><P><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3><P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt">"Qui ne connaît pas la campagne lhiver, ne connaît pas la campagne et ne connaît pas]

I've helped two French people with their English, one 14 and one 25. Both struggled to make up an original sentence initially and both found writing a short (10-line) story very difficult but rewarding - not through lack of vocubulary but imagination... the latter was in tears when she realised she'd misunderstood a word and though her story was no good...

I realise French schooldays are long and leave little time for extra-curricular activity but if I had a child here I'd try to find time to encourage him/her to do a little creative writing occasionally.

[Mistral]

Writing stories??!! No, they don't generally do that sort of thing. I remember working with a group of adults who were preparing the bac and part of the English exam was picture description. They were fine on the description bit, but when I asked them to give their opinions on why the people were ther, what they had been doing before etc, they just couldn't do it. It's back to the same problem of not being encouraged to have a personal opinion about things.

When will they learn about things? Well, even in CP my daughter had a book called "decouverte du monde" and they noted things in it. It was mainly animals and seasons and that sort of thing. Otherwise, as they go on in primaire, they will follow the set curriculum in history, geography and science. The rest seems to depend on the teacher and what they want to do with them.

[Jo53]

[quote]Writing stories??!! No, they don't generally do that sort of thing. I remember working with a group of adults who were preparing the bac and part of the English exam was picture description. They were...[/quote]

They don't write stories? Is that really the case? I am not trying to carp or to score points here, but I find that genuinely sad. I can't comprehend an education system that never asks a primary school child to write a story. It's so fundamental. If true, the absence of story-writing implies that the system does indeed view children as little sponges to be stuffed with facts; what those little sponges have inside them to express is of no consequence. Perhaps that's why you see so many modern British and American novels in translation on the bookshelves here; few French people have been inspired to write their own.

Jo

 

[Pucette<P><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3>Pucette<FONT><P><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3><P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt">"Qui ne connaît pas la campagne lhiver, ne connaît pas la campagne et ne connaît pas]

There's no shortage of contemporary French fiction and I have seen no evidence to suggest that there is any link between the teaching of creative writing at school and literary genius.
What you have found on the shelves that you have perused is the result of purely commercial decisions - to make the maximum of money with the minimum of outlay/risk.
In local bookshops there is little but very local writing and here in 24/87/19 there are a lot of authors who please local readers but have no national market, let alone an international one. In local supermarkets there is mostly crime & romantic fiction - translated as you say but neither inspired nor inspiring (no disrespect intended to the authors, writing such things is a difficult craft in itself).
In my area to buy contemporary French fiction I go to the library or order books.
Literary genius aside, the French system does seem to me to stifle the creativity and self-expression of many ordinary young people.
The system is changing, slowly - and only slow change is appropriate imo; most French parents do not consider that fostering creativity is the school's rôle.