It's the back to school week!

C'est la rentrée!!!!
A lot of parents and students are both excited and anxious to resume the school- year routine. I happen to be a parent of a new kindergartner. My 5 year -old daughter is going to start school on  September 7th and I must say that I am a little apprehensive. My daughter never did any daycare or any preschool. She and I are always together. Wherever I go, I take her along. So I have to admit that it's going to be a trying experience having her away from me the whole day, five times a week. However, I can't hide my joy when I hear her talking about school with such excitement and eagerness. She is READY to start. No doubt about it!
I feel that I share the same apprehensions and excitement that a lot of parents feel right now especially those who either are new kindergartners' parents or first-grade parents whose children will start the French-Immersion program for the first time. I understand their worries. After all their children will start learning a foreign language, a foreign language that the parents themselves don't understand. They worry that they won't be able to help. I just want to tell them that there are many ways they can help their children in their first exposure with a foreign language. Here you are a few of them:

1- Tell them about how wonderful it is to be able to speak and understand  a foreign language on top of the language that they use at home. Tell them how fun it is to learn a new language. Children love to learn new things as their brains are like sponges absorbing new concepts all the time.

2-Plan a trip to the French Cultural Center. Take your first-grader and give him a taste of what he will be learning.  Get him accustomed to hear French and expose him to the French and Francophone culture in general.

3-Each day after school, play a game. Ask him/her how many words in French he learned and have him teach you what he learned. Children love to play teachers.

4-Try to get him/her to listen to French music as often as possible. This can be extremely helpful. I will soon add a list of the French song Cds I recommend on my Books I Recommend page. Please review it as often as possible.

5-The thing that I often recommend my students' parents to do is to get TV5, a French TV channel. All you need to do is contact  your cable provider. You can do that online or by phone. It costs 10 dollars a month and it's worth a million! From 4:30pm to 5:30 pm there are cartoons for all ages made in France. Please if you think that your kids, at this early stage of French learning, won't understand much
of the cartoons or the French programs, you are wrong. By linking the images they see to the words they hear, their brains can unconsciously make out the meaning and that's how they learn. Plus they will be used to hearing French spoken by kids their age and believe me everything they hear won't be lost.

6-If you feel helpless or sometimes frustrated not to be able to help your children do their homework, relax and know that sometimes parents need to back off and let their children create their own ways to learn. You'll be surprised how efficiently little children can solve problems provided they are given guidance and encouragement. Be there for your children and encourage them to be creative. If they are stuck, don't hesitate to have them ask their teacher that they didn't understand how to do their exercises. The teacher knows what you're going through and is understanding. Teach your child that whenever he has trouble doing an exercise, not to be ashamed to ask his/her teacher to explain the instructions again. I will soon write a blog article about the ways to help your kids do his/her homework without the frustrations and helplessness that come with it.


These were a few recommendations to enable parents of young children who just started the French Immersion program, but they are also applicable for the parents of older children who are learning French or any foreign language. Adults learning French can also benefit from those recommendations.
Please don't hesitate to post a comment or a question about this article or if you want to talk about your experience.
Bonne rentrée à tout le monde!