Would you be interested?

[Dormouse]

I'm trying to guage whether people would (theoretically) be interested if such a programme was offered in their area:

I am a qualified teacher (18 years experience in primary sector) as well as a qualified TEFL teacher. It was suggested that English families, whose children go to French schools & learn to read & write French, might be interested in having a "Saturday school" (or After School class) to help keep up their English literacy skills. This being from children just begining French school to children of about 10.

If this was offered in your region, would you be interested? Do you think it's a viable idea?

Thanks for your help!

[Lori]

My daughter is in college now, so is out of your age bracket.  However, due to the fact that her primary school taught English with cassette tapes (which were rather sad at best), I definitely would have enrolled her in your program.  Her English grammar is not what it should be.  Your type of program could have made a difference.

 

[Wendy]

YES! In Australia I had some swedish friends who sent their kids to swedish school on saturdays to keep them in touch with their language and culture. Its a great idea.Our son is four and will start ecole maternelle this week and we want his english skills to continue.

[Vienne_Billygoats]

I would also be interested if someone offered that service in our area. I have started this summer to teach my five year old daughter to read, but I am not a teacher and she would probably respond better to being taught by a non family member. So let us know if you ever get anything started.

[Viv]

Would I use this service? In theory yes, in reality no.

To be honest, the school week is long and hard enough and the thought of imposing more education on my children, well I just couldn't do it. May be if they were pre school age but then there is the financial aspect, we and I suspect many others don't have a great deal of surplus cash [Www] Then of course, how far would we need to travel? There aren't many other Brits in spitting distance where we live.

I think it is feasible, but you need to be in a high density of  fairly well off Brits type community; and even then I wouldn't rely on it as a sole means of income.

Good luck!

 

[Lollie]

Hi

Remember the majority  already go to school saturday mornings.

Lollie

[Miki]

Majority ?

Surely not the majority now, is it ?

[mitsi]

There's certainly Saturday school here in the Charente Maritime - but they do get Wednesdays off. I think English schooling is a good idea. My then 8 Year old daughter was having to sing ' if you 're happy and you know it shout hurry' when she challenged the teacher to say it should be Hurrah she was told it doesn't matter it's not important - well it is to her! If she made the same mistakes in French she would surely be corrected!

I still don't understand why the schools that have English children there are reluctant to use the resources available even on a voluntary level. I even offered English books but told they weren't necessary!

[SaligoBay]

I agree with Diva.

There is somebody doing this in Montpellier on a Saturday morning.  Some reasons why we didn't do it:

1. In my son's collège of 800 pupils there are 5 who speak English, and 4 of them are in the same class.  The other 3 went to these Saturday morning things, but son had already spent the best part of 5 days with them, and wasn't inspired to spend his weekend with them too.  The English-speaking expat circle is relatively small,  so the group wasn't big. 

2. Cost seemed high, more expensive than other activités. 

3.  I can correct his English with the best of them!  If he can get through Midsummer Night's Dream and Coral Island, and read the da Vinci Code in a day, I'm not going to lose sleep over his English.   Yes, he does drop in a few Frenchisms now and again, but if he found himself in the UK, his English would still be at least as good as children his age.  

[opas]

Double post self deleted as the forum only allows a nano second to press the delete button.

[opas]

I have to agree with SB here, our youngest is forever being corrected by her dad for saying " yesterday night " instead of "last night" as in the literal translation of Hier Soir, but I too can live with that,  I personally think that some of the Brit adults could do with a Saturday school for french!