Helen McEwan (left) with children joining in on English Talk Radio

The May 21 English Talk Radio show features Helen McEwan of ABC Anglais, and took place at Les Petits Bilingues, Grenoble.

Listen to the show: here

English Talk Radio is a talk show in English on 90.8 Radio Campus Grenoble. We talk about film, theatre, finance, restaurants, travel, and have a variety of topical guests. There are four presenters: Kristine Minski talks about finance, Christina Menez talks about China, Mary Zaccai talks about student issues, and Vivian Draper – animatrice/rédactrice – hosts the show. Every Sunday at 12.30pm, and every Wednesday at 7pm on 90.8, Radio Campus Grenoble and live on www.campusgrenoble.org – and also here on Grenoble Life.

Euros. Photo: Zempt

Kate Daligault is a financial advisor at Banque Rhône-Alpes in Grenoble. She talks to Grenoble Life about the banking culture in France, getting financial advice in English, and what new residents need in order to open an account.

Grenoble Life: What is your role at Banque Rhône-Alpes?

Kate: I work with international clients, guiding them through the pitfalls of the French banking system and hopefully making their lives in France easier. I can also help with tax returns and financial planning – even the French find these difficult!

GL: Banque Rhône-Alpes has produced a lot of practical advice about its services in English, why?

Kate: Most of our clients do not speak French or simply feel more comfortable talking about their personal finances in English – the French banks use a lot of technical jargon which can be daunting. We also have part of our website in English, a corporate brochure on Banque Rhône-Alpes, means of payment and different types of accounts in France, and several product brochures as well.

GL: Tell us a little about your background and where you come from.

Kate: My passport is British, but I think I’m what you call one of these third culture people. I was born in the States, and travelled mainly in Europe during my childhood years, due to my father’s career, learning to speak French in Switzerland. I first went to England when I was 12 years old and completed my secondary school and university studies there, and then went to work in The City, London, for Natwest Bank. For my first permanent position, they sent me to France, and I’ve been here ever since.

GL: Why did you come to Grenoble originally?

Kate: Like everyone else – because of my husband’s job! We used to live in the Southwest of France and he was transferred to his company Head Office in Grenoble in 2004, following a promotion.

GL: When did you start working at Banque Rhône-Alpes and what kind of training did you need for the job?

Kate: I’ve been with Banque-Rhône-Alpes for just over a year now, and although I’m a qualified UK Financial Advisor, have a degree in Banking & International Finance, and have been advising expats in France for over 12 years now, I still had to go through the in-house Private Account Officer training! This consisted of four separate weeks of training, spread over three months at the Head Office in Paris. It was difficult to go back to full-day lessons, but very worthwhile.

GL: How can new residents to Grenoble get face to face financial advice in English?

Kate: The best way is to contact me on 04 38 02 38 81 or kate.daligault (at) banque-rhone-alpes.fr and arrange for an appointment. Our branch is right next to Chavant cinema, in the centre of town.

GL: How has the banking culture in France changed since you arrived in the country?

Kate: The main difference has been the introduction of online banking and call centres. Although these provide greater ease of access for clients, they tend to dehumanise banks and make clients feel anonymous. I feel that one of Banque Rhône-Alpes’ great strengths is to move away from this commercial banking model and retain personal contact with clients – I know all my clients by name and see them at least once a year.

GL: How does the banking culture differ from that in your native country?

Kate: Ever wonder why you have debit interest to pay, but your account was never overdrawn? This is due to the French value-dating system, which means that for a cheque for 1,000 € deposited on day one, the funds are not available until day three. Therefore if you write a cheque before that date, you may be overdrawn in value terms.

The other big difference is the legal status of cheques in France. Writing a cheque without having sufficient funds or a pre-arranged overdraft is a misdemeanour, as is bouncing a cheque. This results in being blacklisted by the Banque de France for five years and will affect your credit rating. You will not be able to obtain credit until you have cleared your previous liabilities.

GL: What advice would you give new residents looking to set up an account in France?

Kate: The main difficulty when you first arrive in France is that you cannot open a bank account because you don’t have a fixed address yet, but estate agents will not let you sign a rental agreement if you cannot provide details of a French bank account … it’s Catch 22. At Banque Rhone-Alpes, we have over 20 years’ experience in dealing with new arrivals, and all you need to provide is:

• a valid passport or national identity card if you are from within the EU
• proof of employment / studies in France
• a valid address

Parents and their Toddler Talkers enjoying a story. Helen McEwan is second from left

abc anglais is a brand new English speaking playgroup in Grenoble for the youngest of children and their parents no matter where you are from. Mums, dads, toddlers and babies are totally immersed in an English-speaking environment during the session, joining in the nursery rhymes and songs, listening to favourite stories, playing age-appropriate games as well as taking part in art and craft activities all conducted in English. It’s run by me, Helen McEwan, a UK qualified Speech and Language Therapist and experienced English language teacher.

Every session is structured around a subject, which forms part of a five week theme, for example, ‘On the Farm’. We always have at least one story, one song, one nursery rhyme per subject, e.g., ‘cows’, and plenty of games and craft activities to keep the children actively interested. There is also a story and a couple of songs on the general theme which we come back to every time to reinforce the learning of the theme and to allow the children (and parents) to familiarise themselves with the English songs and stories.

There are currently three levels – “Baby Babblers” for babies up to 12 months old, “Toddler Talkers” for one to two year olds, and “Chatterbox Children” for two to three year olds.

My idea of exposing very young children to a language they do not normally speak at home is based on the theories of language development in general. There are still many mysteries surrounding language acquisition (and even more so around the thorny issue of bilingualism), but it is believed that a child learns the fundamentals of his/her own language by age three. So, in order to maximise the chances of a child learning an additional language as naturally and easily as possible, it is best to start early.

In addition, there is clear evidence that learning the sounds of language is done in the first year of life, much research quoting just the first six months as the time limit on acquiring the speech sounds specific to your language. So, if you noticed your baby being able to trill or click and make sounds more akin to more ‘exotic’ languages in its early months, this is because your baby was born with the ability to make all speech sounds, but quickly hones into the sounds s/he hears in her environment and continues to practise only those in the babble phase, around six–nine months. Therefore, if you want to pronounce another language well – especially if it sounds very different to your own, (French vs. English!), ideally you need to be exposed to the sounds of that language in the first six months of life, or certainly no later than the first year in order to reproduce them accurately later on!

Making spider bracelets with Chatterbox Children at Halloween

For this reason, I choose stories which use repetition, rhyme, have a strong rhythm, are not very ‘wordy’, but have captivating story lines as well as bold, striking artwork to capture the child’s imagination, even if s/he doesn’t know any English yet. For any form of learning, familiarisation of the subject matter is essential. Repetition is therefore a valuable learning tool, and so we come back to the stories and songs and rhymes during one session, during a theme, and also during the course of the year, but from different angles. ‘Noah’s Ark’ can be used in a session on rain, as well as animals, boats, or counting for example.  In any case, children love returning to their favourite books, toys, programmes over and over again.

The same principle applies to the songs we sing. They are carefully chosen for their ease of learning, and because they are fun, and tuneful and worth singing. Learning through song is almost primeval. Often it is easier to learn a phrase with music or with a strong rhythm – do you remember doing this when revising for an exam, or learning a new language? – as you are allowing your brain more chances of storing the data and hence more opportunities of retrieving it via various routes – the linguistic and the musical. Singing is an almost instinctive response to childcare. Many cultures use music for child rearing, and children respond instinctively to the human voice, particularly their mother’s. In this way singing constitutes a fundamental form of early interaction between parent and child.

I set up abc anglais because of my own experience of coming to Grenoble six months pregnant with my first child. Although I have worked with children, including newborns and premature babies, I had no idea what to expect with my own baby, particularly in a very new and foreign environment. And I was very disappointed to discover that actually there is very little available for parents and babies in particular. It was a very isolating and disorientating experience. Thank goodness for Open House and the Baby and Toddler Groups there, which I quickly became involved with (and I encourage all similar families to). Running the groups there and doing prototype abc sessions at my daughter’s garderie gave me the idea to combine my professional skills with offering something that I feel is lacking in Grenoble – a service for our youngest of citizens. In the UK, I worked in nurseries and clinics for the under fives, and ran parent-child interaction groups which encourage positive communication. I draw on this experience and other principles of my profession in designing and running the abc sessions.

Helen McEwan

So, abc anglais is as much an opportunity for parents to have some quality play time with their young children, as it is an opportunity for the children to become exposed to English at the optimum time for language learning. It is also an opportunity for parents to practise their English, and enjoy being in an English-speaking environment. abc anglais is as much for parents as for children, and this is a fundamental basic principle. And it’s open to everyone, not just Anglophones. Families from USA, Asia, as well as many different European countries, and French families are currently attending.

Sessions are held in two locations in Grenoble – at Les Petits Bilingues, place de Metz, on Mondays and Tuesdays, and at the new English café – Bookworm, rue St. Laurent, on Wednesday and Saturday mornings. The new block starts the week of 9 November. It will run for five weeks, with a special Christmas session in the week of 14 December. Come and join us, it’s lots of fun!

(Check out the Bookworm Café blog and the fantastic Mômes à Grenoble blog for further information on forthcoming events, or contact me: abc.anglais (at) free.fr)

Maria Montessori

Martine Grzelack runs The Montessori International School of Grenoble, opening September 2009. Grenoble Life wanted to know more about the new centre, the background of the staff and the famous Montessori method.

Grenoble Life: When does the Montessori International School of Grenoble open and what is your role?

Martine Grzelack: In September 2009, we’ll be lucky to find a bilingual Montessori School in the suburbs of Grenoble. It will be situated in Meylan. This school will enable children to study and work while developing their personality. My mission will be to look after the children and to run this school so that everything works out well to the benefit of everyone.

GL: What is the Montessori method?

MG: The Montessori International School of Grenoble is a private school, ruled by a not-for-profit association (association loi 1901).

The school curriculum follows the French national education programmes for early childhood and primary schools.

Committed to the highest education standards, the school proposes a bilingual curriculum in French and in English.

The MIG team will provide an individual learning experience for each child, which promotes physical, social, emotional and intellectual development to help them achieve their maximum potential.

Following the Montessori requirements, the children are dispatched into two age groups: 3 to 6 years old (early childhood) and 6 to 12 years old (elementary).

GL: What is your experience with using this method?

MG: I have been working for six years according to the Montessori pedagogy. First, I attended a teaching practice course at the Centre de recherche d’études de formation et de liaison des activités Montessori (CRELAM) in Rennes – a French institute which doesn’t grant an Association Montessori Internationale diploma. Then, I went to Switzerland to obtain an AMI diploma for children from 6 to 12. This method enables the children to open out in their development while being in the pleasure of learning and discovering. Children gain an autonomy and maturity which enables them to make choices.

GL: Why did you originally train to teach the Montessori method?

MG: I discovered this pedagogy while thinking about the educational system in France. Coming from a very different horizon – I graduated as a geologist – I wanted to work with children after having worked with engineers-to-be (I was in charge of professional training in my firm).

After preparing the examinations to be a school teacher, I realized that the “group pedagogy” wasn’t satisfying for me. I looked for something different. Some friends had their son in a Montessori school and that’s how this wonderful adventure started.

GL: What age groups do you teach at the Montessori International School of Grenoble?

MG: The International Montessori School is open to children from 3 to 12 years old. They are dispatched in groups of three or six years according to Maria Montessori’s method. It is important not to keep a child exclusively in his or her age group.

GL: How does the methodology differ from that used in the French state schools for these age groups?

What is different from the French school is mainly the learning approach through the senses, with the help of the adequate and attractive equipment created by Maria Montessori herself. Moreover, the work in classes with mixed ages enables each child to learn with pleasure because there are no barriers between the different learning activities.

Montessori International School of Grenoble

GL: Do you have classes in French and English? Will these classes be taught separately?

MG: In each class, there is a French teacher and an English speaking assistant who participates throughout the school day. The teachers offer help to the children that ask for it in their mother tongue, in order to encourage interest in languages. There will also be Spanish classes organized.

GL: Why has it been decided to open a school here in Grenoble?

MG: I wanted to work in a school where the pedagogy is adapted to each child and gives them what they need academically for their future studies. I want to be able to share with these families a teaching method which deeply respects the child as an individual and as a learner.

GL: What is the profile of the parents who have registered their children to come to the school?

MG: The parents who send their children to a Montessori school come from different backgrounds: managerial staff in large firms, teachers at “public” schools, professional workers, employees, people working in tertiary industries … they have varied profiles but they have the same aim: their children’s well-being.

GL: Tell us about the teaching team.

MG: The teaching team is composed of two educators with an international Montessori diploma and an English or French speaking assistant according to the class. It is a dynamic team, very motivated to help the children improve, respectful of the Montessori pedagogy.

GL: Will you have recruitment opportunities in the future? What are the advantages of working at Montessori International School of Grenoble?

MG: Yes, we hope that we’ll have to recruit next year, or in two years to open new class. Why not offer children the opportunity to learn another language like German for example … but we don’t want the school to lose its soul by recruiting too many pupils or staff. We thank you for these questions.

GL: You’re welcome, thank you!

The Montessori International School of Grenoble
Boulevard des Alpes, 38240 Meylan
+33 6 72 66 76 32
ecole@montessori-grenoble.com

Ben interpreting for Anand Gokani (great grandson of Mahatma Gandhi)

Benjamin Penin swapped sunny Manchester for downtown Grenoble in 2002 to pursue his dreams of living in the Alps and becoming a freelance translator.  Grenoble Life wanted to find out more …

Grenoble Life: You have an interesting bi-cultural background, tell us about it.

Benjamin Penin: I was born in London to an English mother and a French father. Intent on creating bilingual offspring they spoke to my sister and me in their respective mother tongues, while our schooling took place in the capital’s French schools. It was the family’s move to Manchester that thrust us into a more traditional British education, just in time for my GCSEs. A massive culture shock I’m still struggling to deal with! I was French, then I was English, and now I’m not so sure…

GL: You are a translator and an interpreter. Do you need specific qualifications to do this in France?

BP: Specific qualifications in translation certainly aren’t essential to finding work (except if you wish to work as a “sworn translator”, for legal documents, court work, etc.).

My university degree included specialist training in translation, but to be honest, “on-the-job” experience is far more useful than any diploma … this may be news to some in France [laughs].

Customers are primarily interested in the quality of your work, so once you have proven your worth and built yourself a strong reputation, work tends to come in through contacts and word of mouth.

GL: What kinds of clients do you generally have for your translating work?

BP: My translation clients are firms and other organisations that need to communicate to an English-speaking public or with their subsidiaries abroad.

A huge variety of sectors benefit from the services of people like me, from high-tech industry, to banks, cultural associations, conference organisers and ski resorts!

You have to be versatile and knowledgeable because of the variety of the work out there. I might translate detailed promotional material on a region’s winemaking industry one week and guidelines for energy-efficient building construction the next!

GL: What kinds of clients do you have for your interpreting work?

BP: They might be companies or associations who hold conferences for an international audience, training courses for foreign employees or meetings between individuals who don’t speak the same language, or even regional authorities receiving foreign visitors.

GL: Are your clients mostly based in the local area?

BP: For translation, not really. The rise of the internet means that customers can be acquired from anywhere, although local organisations tend to look for suppliers in their vicinity, and translation is no exception.

Interpreting work tends to revolve around the Rhône-Alpes region for obvious reasons of travel costs, although I have had assignments in Utah, Tunis and Amsterdam.

GL: Do you translate from English into French and French into English? Is there a difference in the way to approach such work? Is one more challenging than the other?

BP: People consider me to be completely bilingual, but I find the subtleties of French slightly more challenging (and time consuming!) so it makes sense for me to translate only into English. I’m sure some people work in both directions, but I have doubts over the quality of the results.

GL: Tell us about some interesting jobs you’ve done as an interpreter.

BP: The end of last year took the biscuit in terms of unusual jobs.

September kicked off with an assignment interpreting for the French Minister of Finance during her tour of local multinationals, and ended with a day accompanying Mahatma Gandhi’s great grandson (above) to press conferences, radio interviews and lunch with the Deputy Mayors.

Not long after, I spent a month in a laboratory near Nîmes with a young Russian chemist who was being trained up on the various ways of testing dog-food quality!

I could tell you about my four weeks in the countryside with a group of Indian civil engineers, but it’s a long story involving hydroelectric dams, frogs’ legs and rather too much time spent in coaches.

GL: What are some of the challenges / drawbacks of being self-employed in France?

BP: France certainly isn’t known as being an entrepreneur’s dream, but once you’ve got your head around the accounting rules and paperwork (pension, tax, insurance, etc.) I don’t think it’s any worse than other countries.

However, those exercising “professions libérales” pay a huge whack in social contributions and taxes (40-50% of their income) and of course they don’t have all the advantages of French employees.

GL: What are some of the advantages to being self-employed in France?

BP: You can take the day off at a moment’s notice and be on the slopes in less than an hour!

GL: What are some of the advantages and disadvantages of working at home?

You avoid office politics and traffic jams, but you need serious self-discipline to get your work done without it overflowing into your free time.

GL: Why did you come to live in Grenoble?

BP: I like Britain, but the weather would have driven me over the edge eventually, plus it lacked both a lifestyle conducive to a long life and sufficiently extreme geology – the Alps definitely exerted a gravitational pull on me.

GL: Is Grenoble a good town in which to do your kind of work?

BP: It is insofar as the local organisations involved in the leisure sector, high-tech industry, culture and tourism usually seek to work with local suppliers. But the web-based nature of my work makes my location almost irrelevant. There is a good little network of translators and interpreters here, though, and word of mouth works well.

Benjamin Penin – French-English Translator & Interpreter
Tel: 06 65 16 27 14
website

Lolly the taxi, Les Petits Bilingues mascot!

Shaké Manoukian is manager of Les Petits Bilingues in Grenoble, an English language  learning centre for children. Grenoble Life wanted to find out more about her background, the school, the methodology and their new centre opening in September.

Grenoble Life: What is your involvement at Les Petits Bilingues?

Shaké Manoukian: I’m the manager of Les Petits Bilingues – Grenoble. We are part of a national network. Les Petits Bilingues was founded in 1992 in Lille as a family oriented playgroup, and now is a big network with 30 centres in all of France (even in La Réunion!). We all profit from a strong pedagogical staff, with a deep knowledge of English teaching to children.

Personally I’m Italian and I learnt French and English in my childhood with no effort. I wanted to give the same opportunity to my children and that is the reason why we came to Grenoble four years ago. For the same reason last year I decided to set up les Petits Bilingues in town. I wanted to offer French children the chance to improve their English. I was tired of my French friends saying, “Ah nous les Français nous sommes nulls avec les langues….”. Learning other languages as children is much easier and more efficient.

Les Petits Bilingues is a periscolaire learning centre – we provide English lessons to children aged 3 to 11. We work mainly on Wednesdays and Saturdays, but also late afternoons after school. During the week our lessons are one hour long, on Saturday they are 1h30 and we share a snack with the children.

GL: Les Petits Bilingues is a franchise. Who brought the franchise to this region and why?

SM: In summer 2008, I brought Les Petits Bilingues to Grenoble, and their mascot Lolly, a real Black Cab from London. I was looking for some experience in English for my daughter and I realized that what was on offer in Grenoble was weak and unstructured. I discovered the national network and built it up in our region.

GL: What is the methodology at Les Petits Bilingues?

SM: At LPB we want to have fun. Children and teachers come here to share a fun experience in English. In French there is the word ludique which is a mix of pleasure and education, and that is exactly what we do.

Our approach is by immersion, we never use translation, we talk non-stop, we repeat continuously and we indicate with pictures, actions, and gestures.

We have a yearly program, with a specific theme each week and a defined phonetic subject we practice with children. Our tools are games, songs, rhymes, arts and craft…

We really try to make the children speak spontaneously in English.

GL: What is the typical profile of the parents of children at Les Petits Bilingues?

SM: I would say that 70% of our families are French. They want that their children to become comfortable with foreign languages from the very young age. They are aware of the advantages that represents.

The other 30% are either  “mixed families” with two or more languages spoken at home, or families who have lived abroad, where children already have good English and wish to keep it fluent.

GL: What is the typical profile of a teacher at Les Petits Bilingues?

SM: All my teachers are required to be  native speakers, and this is part of our pedagogical project. Our kids are in direct contact with a person coming from an other culture, they can discover traditions, tricks, and accents. Our teachers spent their childhood in an English environment and therefore are the only ones who can transfer this atmosphere to our students.

They are all child-teaching professionals with at least two years of full time experience.

GL: Why do you think parents want their children to come to Les Petits Bilingues?

SM: There are different reasons related to the age of children. For the very young ones, under six, parents with a bilingual project for their children don’t have in Grenoble the choice of a bilingual  école maternelle, they are then very happy to find a place where their children can approach English with a specific program for this age group.

For the children at this age it is very important to identify language with a place, when they come to LPB it is as if they were doing a trip to an “English speaking country”. Our classes are always decorated with posters and pictures related to English Countries and that helps them understand why they learn English.

For the primary school parents, reasons are similar: they want a professional approach and even if most of schools have some English lessons it is never enough, and it is rarely taught by native speakers.

GL: What is the ideal age for children to start learning English as a second language?

SM: It is never too early, before the age of six children are developing their phonetic system. Even babies can tell the difference between mother tongue and a second language;  they can tell the difference and parents shouldn’t be concerned over confusion. Learning a second language very early makes it very easy to learn other languages in the future because the brain is already organized to learn them.

We accept children from three years old for practical reasons, we offer group activities and without parents.  We are evaluating a new project “mums, dads and babies” groups, starting next year to answer the need for under-threes.

GL: Why do you think learning English has become so important in France?

SM: It is not just in France: despite the efforts of a few English has become the international language, and it is not only in the business world, it is also necessary for travelling (and French people love to travel around the world!). If you want to check something on internet, watch a movie, listen a song, English has become a fundamental need. As I said before, English can be the first language learnt but children will often add more foreign languages, and if you start as a child it is so much easier!

GL: Have you faced any resistance from parents to the methodology used at Les Petits Bilingues?

SM: I guess that our main problem was to “educate” parents, since often in France people want concrete results. In the process of learning languages everybody needs time, and everybody has their own rhythm. If you think that a toddler needs at least two years to speak fluently in his or her mother tongue, you can’t expect with one hour per week to have a bilingual child after one year. Some children love to repeat everything, others prefer to be really sure about their knowledge and they may surprise you with a full sentence from one day to another.

GL: I understand that you are opening a new centre soon – tell us about that.

SM: From September 2009 we will have a second centre in the Grésivaudan area, in Montbonnot, on the Route Nationale. We know that in this area there are a lot of international families planning to relocate to English speaking countries, and we want to offer them a centre closer to their homes.

GL: What recruitment opportunities do you have? What are the advantages of working at Les Petits Bilingues?

SM: We search for native English speaking teachers with a lot of energy and consistent professional experience working with children. We are a group and we work a lot together, sharing ideas and teaching approach. We work in a specific atmosphere where we enjoy our work; we can be very creative but at the same time we are very vigilant of our pedagogy.

GL: What kind of feedback have you had from parents of students at the school?

SM: They are all very happy, we provide also extra activities such as a puppet show with an English company, a LPB Day, a visit to Natural History Museum, and for next year we have many other projects … parents also like to join us in these activities and practice their English too!

GL: Give us some contact info

SM: Starting September we will have two centres in Grenoble : one in town (9 place de Metz) and one in Grésivaudan (508 rue Général de Gaulle in Montbonnot). For further details please contact us at 04 38 92 01 01 or grenoble@lespetitsbilingues.com or visit our websites for 3 to 12 years and 12 to 18 years.

Communication Café kids painting

Reia Farrall – Bilingual Education in Grenoble

The battle has been won for the moment … with my husband constantly speaking to our daughters in French and I in English (and having an amazing English nounou one day a week), and with regular visits from respective grandparents: our children appear to be bilingual and quite happy in either French or English. Now, we are just about to embark on making that all-important ‘next’ decision that seems to affect English-speaking families in Grenoble – which primary school will our children go to? Do we leave them in their local school? Do we put them in La Houille Blanche: where English is taught for one hour for a day, but has a competitive entrance; and would require a lot of organisation for getting ourselves together to get there? I really enjoy the fact that my girls can go to their local school, so that they can still be with the friends from their local area. And given the lack of resources, the teachers and school where our girls go do amazing things with 30+ in their nursery school classes.

However, being a teacher, and having specific ideas on the ways in which I would like our girls to learn, I do sometimes feel a little battered by the French school experience where the girls are consistently assessed according to the ‘norm’ of what French students should know at certain ages. I know that us English-speaking people are often criticised for our ‘positive reinforcement‘ – but I feel that it is lacking a little in my daughters’ education.

Education for me is not just about learning facts. Knowledge is important but education is also about showing our children the different paths that they can follow in life, and how to think for themselves. A school education should help our children to become dignified human beings, respectful of others, conscious that we live in an interconnected world where our decisions affect not just ourselves. The question as a teacher becomes how to encourage ‘learning’ and to help students discover the individual intrinsic worth of each person and themselves.

So rather than worry about the fact that I feel the French system is not doing this and put our girls into another French school, my friend Zoë Atkinson – a speech therapist – and I have taken the plunge and set up an association called Communication Café to help our children learn English. We want our children to embrace their dual cultures, to learn English in a way that we both feel helps our children’s confidence in themselves, and with positive reinforcement. We want to above all encourage our children’s English language development, to help our children feel good about themselves, and to meet other children like them. So it looks like it is not the French system at La Houille Blanche for now…

Results!

Zoë Atkinson – Speaking English in Grenoble: a speech therapist’s view

As far as French cities go, I feel lucky being in Grenoble as an English-speaker, the town being cosmopolitan and open-minded beyond its size. Being an English-speaker has not caused me many problems, apart from the occasional blank when faced with needing to talk about something beyond my French experience. So knowing that my child was going to be French, and not English like myself, didn’t pose as much of a problem for me as it did for their grandparents! Most people react positively when they know that my three year old can speak French and English almost fluently (even if a little mixed up!). I, however, have a few reservations.

Being Mum to a bilingual child, I wanted my daughter to have the chance to mix with other kids in English, to be comfortable with the English part of her identity, and to learn to read and write in English. To summarise, I wanted her to be able to make the most of her opportunity to be bilingual and for it to not be an embarrassment to her. If ever we need to go back to an English-speaking country, I would like her to be able to re-integrate without difficulty.

Being a speech therapist, I was aware that bilingual children integrated into French schools and, learning English at home only, may miss out on academic vocabulary that they would learn in French in school (concepts relating to specific subjects, such as maths, science, technology, religious study or art). I also felt that their use of English is often restricted, and that kids may find it difficult to speak to other kids in English. The French sound system is also different to the English, which affects the ability of bilingual kids to learn how to read and write in English.

Communication Café

Communication Café

We created the Communication Café association to provide another solution to our English-speaking frustrations in Grenoble. We currently run groups in English for children who have at least one English-speaking parent. We start young with Baby-Signing for 0-2 year olds and offer classes for ‘Maternelle’ and Primary ages. We have small groups, with fun theme-based sessions. For the ‘Maternelle-aged’ kids, we have adapted communication objectives taken from speech therapy, plus the foundation objectives from the British National-Curriculum. For the Primary ages, we have adapted objectives from the British National Curriculum, primarily English, but we also dip into other subject objectives with themes that suit those subjects.

Here is a quote from one of our mothers:

I can’t put in words properly the joy we share, watching Oscar spotting English words and wanting to read them and seeing the flash of satisfaction and brightness across his face when he “gets it”. I cant pin point exactly why or how, but it seems you have given him a quiet, assured confidence to try and have fun with words and seeing that confidence develop within him is very rewarding – so thank you very much to you both. Oscar has always been a very curious person but sometimes can lack true confidence to give things a try. So, seeing this natural confidence with words evolve in Oscar is a parental pleasure money can’t buy, if you know what I mean.

Reia Farrall is an Australian-qualified teacher. She has lived in Grenoble for six years, is married to a Frenchman and has two daughters. She currently teaches at Grenoble University at the Institut d’études Politiques. Zoë Atkinson is a UK qualified Speech and Language Therapist. She moved to Grenoble in 2000 with her French partner, and has a daughter. For more information visit our website or contact us via info@communication-cafe.com. Additionally, the Babel association offers English classes for children from English-speaking families: association.babel@laposte.net

Reia Farrall at work

What's French for 'ga ga' again?

Looking down on the improbably cherubic face of my week-old daughter I already find myself pondering her future. As a Brit who’s been living in Grenoble for nearly two and a half years, and married to a genuinely bilingual wife, there are some important decisions to be made soon concerning the language of our child. I’m making slow but steady progress in French although my wife and I normally converse in English. We met at University in the UK and we spent most of our first six years together in England. There was no effort – language-wise – on her part: she grew up near Grenoble in a bicultural household with a French father and an English mother. Despite having grown up in France my wife has strong roots in the UK, particularly Greater Manchester, where her mother comes from and where she spent all of her summers and Christmases since birth.

However, now that we live in France it is difficult to make the transition to speaking French together. We do sometimes, but it never progresses far beyond the pedagogic and often lapses into English if we want to refer to the numerous cultural shared references and jokes that resist translation. The other major excuse factor counting against my accelerated progress is the fact that I teach English for a living, and whereas I come into regular contact with French, in principle I am not allowed to use my students’ native language as it is contrary to the methods employed by the school at which I work (and indeed most theories of language learning). Thus, of all the knowledge I am likely to impart to my daughter, naturally pronounced (or even, for the moment, fluent) French is not one of them. Nor should it be of course. My daughter will grow up in France and no doubt have no difficulties assimilating the language.

One of the overlooked factors of language is its synonymousness with culture. My daughter will be three quarters British by blood and naturally I expect her to be bilingual but also bicultural, to embrace the British side of her identity as much as the French, more or less in the same way that my wife was able to do. My wife’s family had specific rules about language in the household that remain today: she speaks to her parents in their respective mother tongues, to one of her two brothers in English and the other in French. These bonds are hard to break or to invert: language is after all emotional too – which might be a good reason she and I found it difficult to make a meaningful switch to French.

Grenoble being very international, there are a number of organisations sprouting for Children to learn English. These range from associations which aim to support the needs of parents of mixed nationality, for example The Communication Café (more from them soon!), to those – such as the franchise Les Petits Bilingues – which offer predominantly French children a head start on the school system. The latter camp owe their existence less to Grenoble’s Anglophone base as to the increasing importance of English as a core requirement in the diplôme-centric French job market. Whereas such organisations do no harm, the word bilingual or bilingue is often misused as a selling point to French parents who want to give their children the best possible start in life. Bilingual is clearly not the right word. In my (unscientific) opinion it is practically impossible to be genuinely bilingual without growing up in a bicultural environment. Semantics aside, the traditionally globalisation-resistant French are getting pragmatic about the world’s international language.

Initially we discussed the idea of speaking to our daughter in different tongues: English individually with me, French for my wife, and English as a family. However, the early signs are that my wife feels more comfortable speaking English to our daughter, as that is what seems most natural in the context of our relationship. This may change but it will certainly not be to the detriment of our child. Where it leaves me is another question. I’m not overly worried about my abilities in French, it will come with time, but I may not get the kind of exposure to the language that I had envisaged before my arrival in the country.

It has been said to me on several occasions that I will never feel French, significantly by long-term ex-patriots fluent in the language. I agree: fluency in a language doesn’t necessarily amount to complete cultural integration. Having grown up in multicultural London, it has taken me time to adapt to the notion of my own otherness: I was surprised by what a curious specimen I seem to be to the Grenoblois. Being French wouldn’t raise too many eyebrows in the UK, I imagine. There are times when I feel like the French are from a completely different planet, though I’m sure the feeling is mutual (at least where I live). However, it is with a small modicum of sadness that my daughter will feel French, perhaps (but not necessarily) more than she feels English, and that will make me a little exception to the rule in my little bilingual household.

What is certain is that my wife and I can give my daughter a rich future accented by the best of France and Britain (perhaps meaning a British sense of humour and taste in music, with French taste buds and Gallic good looks!). We must be disciplined, but we shouldn’t be overly anxious. Unlike many couples of mixed nationality my wife and I have the advantage of both being native English speakers. I just hope that by starting a family in France, I will feel less and less étranger and increasingly at home.

There is a fair amount of literature on the web concerning bilingualism, from personal experiences to practical help, none of it particularly conclusive. However, there seems to be a general consensus that there are two principal methods to bringing up your child bilingually: 1) one parent, one language; 2) speak the minority language at home. Your opinions on the most effective are most welcome.