11 Plus Exams Forum

My 5 year old DD has half an hour of French a week at her state primary.She loves it and amazingly retains lots of it.I was revising with my year 7 daughter when she piped up the answer to my shock
She has asked to go to the french club that is held in the school and is about £60 a term. She is constantly, I mean daily asking me ,"How do you say this/that in French?"
Are these sort of clubs "worth it" or are there websites(she loves the computer), where a 5 year old can learn more French in a fun way.I could really do without the expense but it is the first thing, other than dancing that she has asked to do.

Any ideas.......

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/primaryfrench/
Because learning a language at primary is currently an entitlement, and about to become compulsory, there is SO much stuff on the market and loads of resources online and books to buy.

I'll have a proper look later and see what else I can dig out.
With KS1, I tend to keep it to songs and games though to keep it fun and exciting. They soak it up so well, better than upper key stage 2!

we used to get DVD's eg teletubbies which could have german / french sound

Hi, Chelmsford mum!

Will pm you.

I really do not rate these clubs, which charge parents and are usually a franchise, peddling centralised materials. From what I have seen (never used them, as I am such a cynic) they rely heavily on worksheets, colouring in, that kind of thing. Small children learn languages extremely easily when they are immersed in them, and the closer in style and tone a lesson is to immersion, the more they will learn. So, worksheets are a bad idea.

If, on the other hand, your course involves a native speaker or speakers, lots of chatter and not many chilldren, it might be worth a go. But I doubt that it will involve these things.

Bonne chance.

(and I have to add my usual caveat - why oh why is it always French?!).

Amber wrote:
(and I have to add my usual caveat - why oh why is it always French?!).

Agreed Amber - my knowledge of german you can get on the back of a fag packet but felt it was good one for the kids to learn as we like to holiday there and german speaking switzerland. They picked a fair bit from Charlie Brown and Snoopy, Scooby doo and teletubbies... also we watched UFO.

Thanks everyone
Hopefully this weekend I will have a chance to look up those links.

Amber, Thanks to the term of German I had in school I can sing "My hat it has three corners" in German. Pretty impressive

Thanks again

CM, that is as far as my french goes.

Mind you, over the years I have come to believe that it was all something that I dreamt up, as I hadn't come across any one else that new it

Chelmsford mum wrote: Amber, Thanks to the term of German I had in school I can sing "My hat it has three corners" in German. Pretty impressive

Very good - but can you do the actions?

I use this site with my little Y2 class:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/primaryfrench/

It's quite structured and they seem to like it, especially the games and songs. The sound quality is a bit dodgy in some of the cartoon dialogues, but a non-French-speaker can check what the characters are actually saying by referring to the live action video clips in the En France section, where the "script" appears on the screen.