Ronnie's very first English lesson

I'm on a posting mania today. I finished the posts on Emilie's visit and Waldersbach to check out below.

I'm still in a quandry over which school to send Ronnie to next year. Basically, it's between English and German.

Right now he's in the bilingual French-German program. If he just continues, he'll go to this "college" or middle school;

http://www.col-foch-strasbourg.ac-strasbourg.fr/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=56&Itemid=55

Otherwise, we're thinking of switching him to the "international sections" or rather the English Section of College de l'Esplanade. This is where most English speaking children go.

http://esplaweb.free.fr/

To get in, he would have to have a test.

There are NO options to do all three languages. We know now that next year he'll be bored stiff in English class or German, depending on where he is. There is no flexibility, i.e. excusing, testing out or putting him in a more advanced class in either school/language. That's not how things are done here in France!

I've looked at the statistics but Ronnie would be in the German bilingual program, which is only two classes of Foch so it doesn't really reflect how the students he would be with would do. Actually Foch's numbers were just below Esplanade's, which is impressive since the socio-economic level is much lower around Foch.

At Esplanade, there are local children but 60% are in the International Sections (all languages) so there is a selection process. Esplanade is also twice the size of Foch.

On a practical note, Foch would be much easier to commute to. Esplanade is across town. Ronnie would have to learn to take the tram. Not a big deal as many kids do this and it's right in the neighborhood with the university.

Obviously at Foch, he would be with the same friends.

So I figured that I would have to get Ronnie some English lessons. I got a recommendation from an English-Irish family who successfully moved their oldest from a regular French school to the English section at Esplanade at this same age. The teacher had helped many children make this leap but this was the first time she had a native English speaker from the French-German program.

I should qualify that there were two children who made this switch from Ronnie's school. Their situation was actually in a way worse, with the American parent living back in the U.S. From talking to one of the children, it was obvious that there was no comparison between the English level of these children vs. my own. Through a mutual friend, I was told that they are doing well, like it and are successful. This is very encouraging since they were starting off from a lower point!

But this is a different situation, since my kids speak English every day.

I was sure this teacher would skewer Ronnie's English so I left him, hoping for the best.

Pleasant surprise! She was very impressed. What was amusing was that he made typical German mistakes, not French ones. The French tend to throw in extra vowels and put "E"s on the ends of words. Ronnie wrote "Oktober" and had some other funky spellings that Germans typically do.

He was at or above reading level and, the pitfall of never-studied English speakers, almost at level in writing and spelling. She's pretty confident of the Esplanade test in May.

I credit "Calvin and Hobbs". Thank you Bill Waterson! He reads it non-stop, every night, over and over. It's not really meant for children and the vocabulary is a bit odd (I had to explain "maggot" the other night) but it's obviously doing the trick!