Impromptu Lessons

When your child goes to school five days a week, it is easy to get caught up in the ways of the world and forget about all the natural learning opportunities which occur in family life. When you are the one completely responsible for your child’s education, you begin to look for such lesson chances, even if they end up being in the most bizarre manner.

One such opportunity arose one Saturday morning with my daughter, Hannah. First, however, a little background explanation is required…

When I was at school, I majored in French – both language and literature. I speak French fairly well, and loved France and the whole culture of the country (and still do!). I am currently swallowing up book after book about the numerous people who have “given up the rat race” and moved to rural France.

Clearly, on starting home schooling, I was keen to continue teaching the children French, which they had both started at school. I had glorious visions of regular day-trips to France (we live on the South Coast, so this was quite possible), and long conversations between my children and French shop keepers! To my dismay, my suggestion of French lessons was met with absolute disgust and complaint – they both hated the idea of doing French and practically refused, point blank, to apply themselves to it. I took the view that I would not force them to learn my beloved French, but would wait until such a time when I could introduce it “my way” which, hopefully, they would enjoy. (Actually, I have ended up teaching Hannah Italian and Jonah German, neither of which I know myself, so I am having to learn as we go!)

Back to the Saturday morning in question ….

As mentioned above, I have been reading a lot of books about life in France, of late, one of which included recipes for various types of French food. I decided this weekend that I would have a go at baking some gougeres, which are a sort of cheesy choux pastry. Hannah has always been quite a keen cook, so I invited her to cook them, under my watchful (but very relaxed!) eye.

As we began cooking, I began to give Hannah one or two instructions in French, partially explaining what I was saying, but using enthusiastic hand gestures to signal the rest. Hannah started to enjoy this, and began to respond to me – not in French, but in English with a French accent! This continued on for the rest of the culinary exercise until, by the time the gougeres were in the oven, Hannah had retrieved her big French Workbook (optimistically bought by us last year, but never yet used) and was looking at all the flashcards that came with it. Suddenly, French was the “big thing”!

A few week’s ago had seen the release of the latest Harry Potter book, and when we were perusing the local bookshop, we noticed they had shipped in a whole batch of HP books in foreign translations. We (actually, I) looked at them eagerly and, in a fit of enthusiasm, purchased the French version of The Chamber of Secrets, thinking I might try to use the opportunity of reading it to Hannah, who is a big HP fan. The book has sat on my study desk ever since!

The Saturday morning which saw the renaissance of the French language for Hannah, also saw the disappearance of Harry Potter (en francais) into Hannah’s bedroom where, armed with a French-English, English-French Dictionnaire, she began trying to translate the book herself.

Hannah wants to learn French! Hooray!

NB: I should add, at this point, that this particular “miracle” only occurred with Hannah. Jonah came down to the kitchen during our “cuisine francais” and, upon my greeting him in French, he immediately turned tail and went back upstairs to the PlayStation2! Hhhmmmmm – a bit of work required there, I feel!

A second, slightly sadder note, is that after all this, Hannah didn’t actually like the taste of the gougeres! Who cares, eh?!!!