Feb 1st - Talk on Older Children and Bilingualism (English/French)

This talk and discussion will focus on older children (age 11+) and the issues of secondary schooling and bilingualism. Parents are welcome with children in secondary school or those preparing for it. Proposed areas for discussion are:

Explanation of the French secondary school program
Public versus private schooling?
Transition from primaire to collège
Being independent of parents
Homework
Parent's evenings and communicating with teachers
Increased need of specific vocabulary
Maths, History, Geography, Science: learning subjects in a 2nd language
'English is boring'
French is hard
A foreign language: German, Spanish, Latin

If you have any questions you would like me to answer please email me with brief history of your family (age of child, schooling etc.): bilingsiblings@yahoo.com

You can also post ideas for the talk on the Accents Facebook page.
http://www.facebook.com/l/4cc77;www.accents-asso.fr

Or leave a comment on my blog:
http://opol-family.blogspot.com/2010/01/feb-1st-talk-in-older-children-and.html

Suzanne Barron-Hauwaert

2010

Best wishes for the New Year!

The Accents Association will be hosting a series of monthly talks this year, in an informal setting parents and educators can discuss issues relating to French/English bilingual children and their families. Specific subjects that were requested in the talk in December are:

- Teenagers and maintaining bilingualism.
- Primary school and bilingualism.
- Pre-school and the first steps towards bilingualism.

The first meeting of 2010 is planned for MONDAY 1st February in the Chef-Boutonne area.

For more information contact Kathryn:
http://www.accents-asso.fr/
AccentsAdmin@orange.fr
Tel: 05 49 97 10 17

Let it snow!

A little bit of family news...

As 2010 rolls in I am amazed how quick time flies and how history seems to go in circles. The decade started in rural France, at Jacques' parents house, with the heavy storms of the end of December 1999 and no electricity for a week. Then we had two young children under the age of two. We end the decade living in rural France, via England, Malaysia, America, with three children. Marc, our 12 year-old growing-up-fast-almost-teenager, Nina, our 10-year-old pre-teen chatterbox and Gabriel, the angelic, but lively six-year-old. Along the way we gained a cat, rabbit and fish too.

So what happened in 2009? In autumn Jacques started working from home, which is good for us all and less travelling for him. Marc is growing (now taller than me, 158cm and stil going) and still likes tractors, Nina is in her last year of primary school, she likes music and horse-riding and Gabriel has just learnt to read and play football. The children are more-or-less bilingual and manage to juggle two cultures and languages effortlessly. I finally got the draft done of my book on Siblings and have been busy writing for 'The Connexion' (an English-language newspaper published in France) and teaching English locally.

We all enjoyed our annual family trip to ski (this year in La Plagne). Our holidays were linked to visiting friends this year around the world. Our visits to Munich (Mickeal), Thailand (Mahes), Kuala Lumpur for John's wedding (Odile, Hilary, Mahin, Marie-Cecile, Victoria, Mahin, Nilgoun, Aimee and many others) and Scotland (Corinne, Marie). These were places we had been before, but we saw in a new light. We had a lot of friends and family visit us too this year, you are always welcome in deepest rural France!!

Hopefully, next year we will move down the road to the Logis, which is progressing. The 'heavy' work has been done. It has floors now, a new roof, new windows and full insulation. We have started a vegetable garden this year and are planting a mixed fruit/trees hedge (650 trees) around the property.(see post 'Photos 2009'below for some recent photos) Like all renovation projects the Logis needs lots of money and takes more time than predicted but we do still plan to move there in 2010, in time for Jacques' 40th birthday....

Do keep in touch.

Suzanne

2009 photos

The Logis Vert (back view and front, with steps) and us on holiday in breezy Scotland this summer.

Accents talk in Ruffec

I am presenting an informal talk on Family Bilingualism, organised by Kathryn Dobson from the Accents Association. If you would like to attend please confim with Kathryn: accentsadmin@orange.fr before the 23rd November.

Date: Tuesday 1st December

Venue: Seppings Café (Condac near Ruffec - about 5 mins off the N10)

Leader: Suzanne Barron-Hauwaert

Cost: If you would like to join us for lunch (recommended) then the cost will be 12€ per head (includes coffees/teas etc.) - please let us know if you would like the vegetarian option. If you would like to just come for the meeting there will be a charge of 3€ to cover coffees/teas etc. but we do need at least 10 having lunch to have free use of the venue.

Meeting Format:

We will start with a presentation on bilingualism and then have a general discussion for the second hour. If you have any specific areas that you want to discuss (starting out, issues, one parent one language etc.) then just let us know.

I will bring some books on bilingualism for you to browse and copies my my book (Language Strategies for Bilingual Families) will be on available to purchase.

You can email me your questions on Bilingualism and schooling in France to me at:

bilingsiblings@yahoo.com

or reply through this blog.

Please give me brief details of your family (how many children, their ages, languages spoken.)

Thanks,

Suzanne Barron-Hauwaert

One-cat-one-language

Our cat, Caline, is two years old now. As we celebrated her birthday we tried out some IQ tests to see how she was doing. The children set up a timed test.
‘Caline, here’s your dinner!’ (Cat runs across room and eats food one minute later)
‘Caline, vien manger ton dîner!’ (Cat runs across room and eats food two minutes later)
They decide she replies faster to English, probably because four of us always speak English to her. It seemed weird to speak my second language to an animal, and the children simply followed suit, even though she joined our household as a six-month-old kitten from a French family. The cat does have a role to play though. She is a shining example of the one cat-one language strategy, because now Marc, Nina and Gabriel all speak English to the cat. She meows in return and conversations can go on for quite some time. They even made up special songs for her.

My French friend, Corinne, lives in Scotland and just adopted a kitten from a French family who were moving home. Her two children also follow the one-cat-one-language policy and only talk in French to the cat. Corinne is happy to hear them using more of her language and reports that the kitten loves the kids chatting to her. The OCOL approach may not be high level language use, being rather limited in subject matter (food, water, mice, birds, the weather), but at least it gives children a chance to use the minority language with a willing and purring listener.