English booster lessons for children living outside UK

[julesb]

Apart from running our gite complex www.-tarn-aveyron-gites.com I try to balance the winter budget by dipping into my previous life when I was Head of Learning support in Tring Herts. I've got twin girls (now 9, 5 when they came out) and I'm having to spend a lot of time working to keep their English (written and spoken) up to the same standard as their now excellent french! It quickly dawned on me how lucky I was that I had the background + resources to help them do it, and most of the time they will take it from me. But of course, if you do not have the background, or resources, or your children don't enjoy working on their English with you - it all becomes a bit of a nightmare. So I set up a programme whereby I contact the child once a week and have a telephone lesson, then set work for the following week which the parent just has to supervise. It is not a huge amount of work and fits into normal homework sessions. It has certainly helped my two and I can put you into contact with people I have helped who have been in a similar position. If you would like further info on how I work please contact me. It does not matter where you are based because it is all done by phone and on-line.

[J&J]

I think it is so important that children outside the UK should keep up their English for many reasons, particularly the future job front. Just watching English TV and reading English books isn't really enough, so I fully support what you are offering.
Judith

[olive]

It certainly did take a lot of time working to keep our children's English (written and spoken) up to the same standard as their French. They only ever talked to us, their parents, in English - they stlll always talk to each other in French.
I corrected ours constantly - but they didn't listen very much.
Neither studied English at school in France, except in the last year. They took German and Italian for modern languages, since it would have been a waste of time for them to do English in the French system. Both got 19 or 20/20 in the Bac (I can't remember which).
So they now have four languages.
They are both v comfortable in English - the younger's isn't perfect - and it has helped their work enormously. (Both need to speak and write in English for their work and they manage to do so competently.)
The elder is nearly perfectly bi-lingual - no accent but the odd vocab mistake (the "actually" for "now" type) - but the younger is much less competent (and has a strong French accent). (This is what usually happens, unless the elder is the non-talkative one.) They were 9 and 7 when we moved to France.
Anyone who wants to keep their children's English going but doesn't know how to teach should seek help. Our children's lives are fundamentally better for being able to work - and socialise - in English.

[julesb]

Thanks for your comments and support. I have friends who have been in France since their daughter was 9 years old, quite late to transfer, but, she has coped extremely well with her French and is currently in her final BAC year - imagine her horror when she was not top of the class in English - she was in fact a number of grades behind a fellow student who is Dutch! Living in the countryside she has been living away from home during the week since she was 14 and of course only has french friends and now a steady french boyfriend - keeping the English going to a high level is proving harder and harder - no real problem as she intends to stay in France, but as she is now contemplating becoming an English Teacher she is beginning to wish she had put more into maintaining and advancing her English at an earlier age. Merely taking part in French school English lessons and chatting to Mum and Dad does not ensure a high level of spoken and written English.