My New French-Language Children's Book Haul

I've mentioned this before, but one of the challenges of having the children learn a second language is creating a language-rich environment for them to learn in.

I mean, when you want your kids to learn English, you speak in English to them, play music in English, watch TV in English, point out all the English signage, read lots and lots and lots of books in English, give them lots of toys with English words and letters.

Now imagine trying to help them learn French while you live in the middle of Indiana and don't, yourself, know French.

I'll tell you more some other time about the ways I'm slowly figuring out to enrich the children's environment with French-language music and TV and signage and toys, but for now, let's talk French-language children's books.

I started our French-language children's book collection last summer, when we visited a French-language bookstore in Quebec City. It was a little more challenging than I'd thought it would be, because I didn't realize until I got there that a lot is actually published in Quebecoise, but I figured it out.

But the REAL goal would be to get into a French-language bookstore IN France, you know?

One morning, my awesomest friend texted me that she was, right that second, at 7:00 am Eastern time, standing, in fact, in a French-language bookstore in Paris. She'd just purchased a new suitcase, was heading back to the states the next day, and was happy, she informed me, to walk around this bookstore, describing everything to me and texting me pics, while I filled her suitcase with French-language books.

That's a true friend, right? I mean, would YOU be willing to haul a suitcase full of someone else's books on a trans-Atlantic flight?

She also brought back a bunch of maps and French-language tourist brochures and magazines and stuff, because ephemera is very important to a language-rich environment.

Check out my haul!

A couple of these books are aspirational, simply because I can't imagine having a good French-language children's book collection without them even if the children can't read them yet:



The rest, however, are picture books or early reader books that I think the kids have a shot at understanding. Here are some:



My friend even brought me a couple of magazines!

• Science et Vie Junior
• Spirou

The kids can't read any of them fluently yet, but, as with any young English-learner, they enjoy looking through them, absorbing the illustrations, picking out words, imagining the story based on prior knowledge and the information in front of them.

That's a crucial part of the literacy process, all that work that you do with language before you can read it. The first time the kids experienced it, I was so busy with parenting that I forgot to savor it, but this time, every time I catch Syd in bed with our big French-language Garfield collection, or she shows me a text that she sent in French to a friend to tease her (French composition! Unprompted!), or I see Will sitting on the couch deep into one of those little histories, picking up who knows how much because she certainly unlocked written English without my help?

This time I savor it.

Using Board Books for Foreign Language Study, and other Adventures in Mandarin

For years, I had been looking forward to outsourcing the children's foreign language study. I'm confident at imparting a reading/translation knowledge of any of the languages that I, myself have a [very much lapsed] reading/translating knowledge of (Latin, Attic Greek, Spanish, Icelandic, Old Norse, Middle Welsh, Old English), but I'd rather that they learn pronunciation for extant languages from native speakers.

What I did not realize, however, and yet should have, I suppose, is that even with the children taking a foreign language class, as they are this semester--Mandarin Chinese, through a grant program at our local university--there would still be a lot of work for ME! This isn't just free time in my school schedule, alas. The kids have homework, and of course they must practice daily, and since they're crap at telling me what they did/learned/were assigned in class, of course I must look it up for myself, then find the resources to get them the pronunciation models that they need to accurately review their vocabulary each day.

So each weekend, part of my lesson planning for the coming week is to look up what the kids did in Mandarin class that Saturday, and find the resources to support that particular vocabulary review. The instructors provide excellent cultural enrichment during class, but if I find anything extra that fits with what they did, I also throw that in.

My absolute favorite resource is this YouTube channel, Learn Chinese with Emma. So far, I've managed to find a video from her that covers every single piece of new vocabulary that the children have studied.

There are the basic greetings:

The numbers:

Helpful vocabulary for the New Year celebration:

The seasons:

And new for this week, family members:

One thing that works GREAT for learning a foreign language is board books. You know board books--those laminated cardboard books that they give to babies so that their slobber doesn't dissolve them and they can't rip them up. They're short, because babies have short attention spans, and they have simple vocabulary, because babies don't know many words, and generally the vocabulary is pretty basic, because you want your baby to learn "blue" and "truck" before she learns "disestablishmentarianism" and "fuschia." We use the dual-language approach to reading that I learned from Miss Nancy in toddler Spanish playgroup many, many, many [10] years ago: you read what you can read in the target language, and read everything else in English. Here's Syd practicing her Mandarin vocabulary with a dual-language board book:


You can hear the very beginnings of the tones that she needs to use. Will is still very much "tone deaf," but I'm glad that they're getting the exposure to it. It'll be easier to hear when their study continues, whether that's next semester or in 20 years, you know?

Now that the kids have this much vocab under their belts, I think my lesson plans will begin to reflect an enrichment activity for Mandarin every week--this totally defeats any freedom in my schedule that outsourcing the language provided, but, eh. The kids need it for the reinforcement, and the immersion is fun!

One area that I still need help in supporting them is the written language. As far as I can tell, the class doesn't focus on it, but all the new vocabulary is also written down for the children, so they could certainly learn to read it. I'd like them to learn to write it, as well, but I do not have the first idea about how to start with that. Perhaps my research for these enrichment plans will lead me in the right direction...

So, knowing that we're still very much in the middle of this first Mandarin language class, here are some of the reading/viewing listening resources that we've been enjoying so far: