Setting for Latin and or French

[lippizaner]

Hello, can anyone on here tell me if they are setted from the start for these languages? My forum friend told me that they are asked at the beginning if they have done Latin before (in prep schools) and then tested and setted accordingly.
Is this also done in French?
Thanks.

[pinkhebe]

No idea, sorry. I know they set for maths. My son says that some of the children in his latin class have done latin before, and also his french teacher thought that he'd studied french before (he hasn't).

[ailurophile]

Hi Lippi

I'm fairly sure that French is taught in ability-levelled sets, although I don't know how they go about assessing this at the outset. Presumably your DS is fairly fluent in French? It will be interesting to see how the school respond to this; it would certainly seem daft to teach a fluent speaker alongside children who know little more than "Je m'appelle..." and the days of the week.

[lippizaner]

Yes, DS is fluent in spoken french and when I looked on the KS3 NC levels for the language, the only thing that appeared to be about to hold him back was an immaturity which would be evident in his written english too.
Apparently Level 6 was a Grade C GCSE.
Having been home edded for the last three years, his written french is not so good as it should be if he had been still in school here, but he reads well in it, from choice, as most of the books we have bought for him have been in french. He has various text books for children, plus has read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in french and enjoyed it. I got him the Petit Nicholas books, by Goscinny, and he loved them, found them very funny. But he's more of a text book sort of boy - volcanoes, light houses, history, archaeology, churches that sort of thing.
So yes, I am wondering what will happen when he gets to school! Even in the top set there are unlikely to be many other fluent speakers I imagine. Maybe one or two. I hope so. I don't want him to be the only one.
We are working through the CGP KS3 workbook at a fast rate, just to check on things that he might not know, but apart from some funny spellings, he has been fine. He was off out with one of his farm worker friends on Friday, riding in the tractor with him out in the fields, which keeps his french going. I really don't want him to lose it.
I met an english boy over here, in a class of french children learning english, and HE had a french accent when he spoke english! I asked him why, and he told me he didn't want to stand out as different. Hoping my DS won't adopt similar tactics!

[Fjgrogan]

Speaking a language fluently is not necessarily the same as understanding how the grammar works - how many of us know why some English phrases are the way they are?! I remember a French teacher at Hertford who frequently would tell us that the French would say something in a certain way (which didn't seem logical to us), but could not explain why. As a result I too learnt to speak French by instinct and found that I could not explain why to other people later on - fortunately I was never a French teacher. It was only many many years later that I took a degree module entitled 'Descriptive Linguistics of French' and found out why some bits of French worked the way they did. My grand-daughter is about to find out about that - one of the choices her parents are having to make in deciding on a primary school is what will be her first and second languages. She is bilingual in English and Finnish, and will at some point be studying English as a second language - from scratch! Her main language at school will be Finnish, so if her parents want her to be able to read and write English they will have to teach her themselves.

As for setting - the original question! - the system seems to change over the decades. At Hertford when I started in 1956, we all started French at age 11, and the following year were streamed with A stream doing Latin and B stream German. By the time my daughters were there in the 80s they all started with French and Latin, and were only allowed to take up German if they had proved themselves in Latin - which makes sense because they would start with a basic knowledge of grammar. Sadly my older daughter was aware of that and desperately wanted to do German; she worked really hard to improve her Latin grades and made it throught the exams, but was still not allowed to do German! Sorry I have no idea what happens now, but would be interested to find out.

[lippizaner]

Yes, I know about the grammar etc. They are very keen in French schools to instill grammar into them from an early age, so he has done quite a lot of that, and the CGP book is quite good. We are also using the Galore Park books which are very good to brush up the grammar. Of course, he himself does not think he needs to! That will be the biggest problem I foresee!

[pinkhebe]

Well I asked my son today if they are set for french and latin and he said 'no'. However this is an 11 yr old boy, who, tbh, doesn't always have a clue! However what you might find is the class he's put into all have french/latin speakers of the same ability. He does think that the general classes (ie every other lesson apart from maths) are streamed as one of his friends apparently has more science lessons than he does.

Maybe a question for New Entrants day

[sejintenej]

Speaking a language fluently is not necessarily the same as understanding how the grammar works - how many of us know why some English phrases are the way they are?! I remember a French teacher at Hertford who frequently would tell us that the French would say something in a certain way (which didn't seem logical to us), but could not explain why. As a result I too learnt to speak French by instinct and found that I could not explain why to other people later on - fortunately I was never a French teacher.

A close friend in England is Spanish, married to an Englishman; they have three daughters and Spanish is the language spoken in the house. They also spent the school holidays at the grandmother's in Madrid. One daughter, still at school, was employed by the local council as a Spanish teacher in night school but she only got a grade B at A level; one problem was that the oral examiner was not too good

[Fjgrogan]

I have a habit of dropping out of courses in the middle ......... when I finally returned to a degree course when my children were at CH I again dropped out in the middle and went back a few years later to complete the course. As a result one of the examiners at my final French oral exam had been a student alongside me in my first year - a strange experience, because I remembered that he had been very hesitant at speaking French when he started. Clearly the year he spent in France made a big difference to him. As I was not majoring in French I didn't have to spend a year in France - difficult anyway with children - and I can only produce that level of confidence after a quantity of French wine!! I finally graduated at the age of 48.

[anniexf]

Trespassers! This is the PARENTS' thread, they don't want us old fogeys muscling in!!!

[pinkhebe]

Trespassers! This is the PARENTS' thread, they don't want us old fogeys muscling in!!!

That's right, because you 'old fogeys' never have anything interesting to say!

[anniexf]

Well pinkhebe it's just a matter of saying these interesting things in the right thread! There were some remarks a while ago, maybe before you became a CH Mum, to the effect that parents were having to wade through reams of "reminiscences" (i.e. waffle) which had invaded their dedicated threads. Courtesy, that's all I meant!

[Atticus]

Maths is streamed, but the other classes are taught in sets. All of dd's initial house are in the same set which is very unusual as they are generally jumbled around. From parents evening, the French tutor commented on how good dd's French was ( I lesson a week for 2 years at her primary). I'm not sure what would be the case with your ds being so fluent Lippizaner, but I think the second form generally progress very quickly when they get into CH from whatever their starting point.

Perhaps ringing the language department would give you a better idea. There was a project over Christmas looking at the wide variety of languages spoken or understood by the students and their families - I haven't heard the outcome of it yet though.

[Fjgrogan]

OK, Ann, I take your point, but before I slink back into the shadows where apparently I belong, may I state in my defence that the heading is 'Parents -
Past, Present and Future' - apart from being an Old Blue, I am also the parent of two Old Blues, so I think I qualify as a past parent (and possibly as a future grandparent?).

[anniexf]

Frances your credentials are of course impeccable but this thread is specific: what is current practice at CH.