Je te plumerai le nez!

As part of our Petits Poussins Parent Partnership program with Kids 1st we have been conducting Parent open days so that the parents can come and see the progress and fun their children have in their French sessions.

What a great session we had today at Kids 1st Darlington!  As I arrived at the session I could not believe the turn out,  Sébastien got himself all nervous when he saw all the mamans, papas et la grandmère!  I was thrilled with the support for the session, my favourite bit was the children tapping ‘mon nez’ with ‘les plumes’ (feathers) for our body part song!

It was so exciting to be able to show the parents that Petits Poussins’ curriculum is not only about learning a load of nouns, that the children learn real day to day French using total immersion, so we only speak in the target language.  There was none more proud than I, when I asked one of our Petits Poussins to ask her friend across the room “what is your name?” in French…”va demander comment tu t’appelles?” I said, and off she went to ask her petit ami “comment tu t’appelles?” to which he responded “Je m’appelle….”

You have to bear in mind that these children are 3 and 4 years old and I only ever address them in French.  It’s incredible to see!  I hope that the parents enjoyed it as much as the staff, Sébastien and I did!  One of the parents told me that her children have little French conversations with one another now!  We are so grateful to the support of the parents who encourage their children at home, downloading the songs and apps we blog about.

Petits Poussins and Kids 1st staff have a real partnership going on.  We train the staff as we teach, to reinforce what we are teaching the children during the week until our next weekly session.  The staff are absolutely fantastique across the group and work so hard, even when they have never learned a word of French in their lives, it’s commendable and we are so grateful of their hard work.

As with all of our nurseries we work with, we help them to create French wall displays that reflect what the children have been learning and ensure that we link our curriculum with their lesson plans and the EYFS as much as possible. So if the children are learning about the weather we always try and link it with our theme and throw in something about the weather in French.

If you’d like to leave us some feedback we would be so grateful and we always love to see videoclips of the children at home!

merci beaucoup!

Check the link out below. We need more specialised teachers and training to make this a successful implementation. England came out bottom in reading, writing and listening in foreign languages when the European commission analysed language skills across 14 countries.  Our children are our future and we need more children with language skills for future trading with other countries.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-25634118?SThisFB

We hope that you are becoming familiar with how we strive to continually supply high quality French teaching services.  Following our success, we have worked really hard to train our new Italian teachers to our high standards, and have been so excited and proud watching them deliver our curriculum in Italian following our tried and tested teaching methods.

I only wish you could have been there to see the results as children, as young as one, who have been receiving French lessons with Petits Poussins staff, used their spoken French with the Petits Poussins staff, and joined in during the Italian Piccoli Pulcini sessions!  They would then speak English too!  It really has to be seen to be totally appreciated.  The children were demonstrating understanding as they spoke back in Italian and made associations with the French they had already picked up!  It was such a proud moment for us.  Our staff have spent may weeks following our training programme and totally delivered a session whilst Making Languages Fun!. 

Remember our technique is special and has to give results and be fun at the same time, we only speak in the target language to give an optimum learning experience for the children.  It’s as though they get a little journey to the country of the language they hear spoken for part of their day.  Our specialist curriculum is written and delivered in such a way that the children and staff understand most of what we are saying as we teach and also retain what they have learned.

If you wish to come along and see for yourself, please get in touch, we offer a FREE TASTER SESSION.

We are also starting new adult French and Italian classes too.  Please contact us for further details and venues.

Merci e Grazie!

Evening Chronicle Petits Poussins