Happy on the inside

One month into the new school, and Suzanne has never been happier! This morning while she ate breakfast she said, " I'm so lucky! Today I have Dutch, English and my class picture!". I knew Suzanne wasn't at her best last year. But neither my husband nor I realized how sad Suzanne was. Until we saw how happy she is now!

Suzanne entered CE2 (French 3rd grade) and changed schools so should could be in section internationale. In Lille, that means either the private schools or Sophie Germain, a public school in the center of Lille. She left all her friends behind. But, it's been an empowering experience for her for a couple of reasons.

She rides her bike to school on most days - with us along side of course! But that makes her feel confident and proud. She's made tons of new friends. Which also is a major confidence builder. And, last but not least, she is the best English speaker in her class. But she's far from being overconfident and full of herself about it. She's just happy...and I didn't realize the social pressure was so heavy for her at her old school. I don't really take it as a parenting failure, but look at it as Suzanne's strength of character : she was putting up with a lot and got through it! Every child needs a secret garden so I don't blame her for not telling us how sad she was.

She says that only 2 other kids in the English class speak fluent English. But I can already see what she's learning. In the first week alone, she learned how to write the date in English. In my quest to get my kids to speak, I overlooked such a small thing like the date. She can speak almost perfectly, but doesn't know the date! She's learned how to write the numbers up to 20, write the colors, and she's also doing art in English. It's really an amazing opportunity!

Let the bilingual adventure continue!

My mother's tongue

Two months....has it really been that long? I have been forsaking this blog, although I do think about it often. But my brain power goes to many other activities at the moment like baking, teaching and generally trying to stay sane...

That said, here's a little update on my Franco-American adventures.

Suzanne (almost 8!)  has a space in the bilingual section of the public school. At first, we were worried that it wouldn't happen, that she wouldn't want to go, that the level of English wouldn't be good. But, although it's an experimental programme, we are convinced. Last week, Suzanne and I sat in on a class and she came away smiling (albeit nervous and scared too!). She is both excited at the thought of learning more in English, being with other bilingual kids, and going to a new school. But she's also nervous about leaving her friends and starting a new school. One great thing is that she already has a friend who will be in the same class as her. As the minority language parent, I came away from last week's meeting at the school with a big smile on my face and the rare feeling that parents get when you KNOW you have made a good parenting decision. Not only will it be good for Suzanne to learn to read and write English (at the moment she is teaching herself), but it will be good for her to be around other bilingual kids so she can be proud (she is already but she's also different) and it will help her self-confidence which is pretty low at times. As for the school, I am happy that the kids are all mixed together and the bilinguals are taken out 3 hours a week. So it's the best of the public school education with a twist. And, as a non-French person constantly grappling and fighting with the rigid French structure, I find it an added bonus that the school will be less "French" and more open. The thing that has perturbed me the most since my kids started school is how rigid and strict it is. The classe bilingue provides a different point of view and way of educating the kids because they share experiences with schools in England. Yay! She's come a long way since the word lists I used to post on this blog 7 years ago....for more information on the bilingual french-English class in Lille, you can leave a message. 

Max (4 1/2) is all boy, is into superheros, star wars and collecting sticks. He is now solidly bilingual, which was a main issue for his first 18 months. He continues to mix up his grammar between French and English equally. In some way it's reassuring that his French is speckled with English because it means the English is ingrained in his head. Max always preferred French whereas Suzanne preferred English. At the moment, he is having trouble with "jusqu'à" for example - I'm getting taller. I am jusqu'à your chest.  And he does similar things in French using English structure like Ou est-ce qu'on va à? Literally, where are we going to? My husband and I are often too immune to these slip ups that we have to remind each other to make the correction in the other's language. Max continues to express himself in an extremely precise way, in black and white terms with no shades of grey. The fact that he is bilingual seems to help him because he gets frustrated quickly. His two languages allow him to express his frustration and relieve some of the tension that builds up in his brain.

So after almost 8 years of strict OPOL child rearing, what are my thoughts? Recently, I had an interesting discussion with a Slovak friend who was impressed with how bilingual my kids are. And I really attribute it to how strict I was for the first couple of years. The kids continue to only speak English to me and I find that I have to remind them to speak French in front of their French since speaking French to me is just so unnatural (and vice versa).

All in all, I'm really proud of their progress and proud of how my husband and I persisted. I see other people who weren't so strict and the results are glaringly different. There is also another factor that I'm considering more and more : I see that male friends who speak the minority language don't have as much success as female friends. It's not called a mother tongue for nothing.