Cultural experience with a personal touch

Although this is more of a personal story than a real news item, I really wanted to share this with you. If you are keen to teach your children another language, a skill for life, read on!

It started with my personal passion for languages and my parents’ persistence to try to teach me French by spending holidays in France and encouraging me to play with French children to practise my newly acquired and therefore limited language skills. In an ideal world, I would have hired a French tutor or possibly a French speaking nanny but as this was not within budget, I agreed with our French au pair that, although she was with us to improve her English, she was happy to teach my children some French at the same time.

My boys were 4 and 6 when Anne-Laure first joined our family. Both attended French lessons at Le Club Francais once a week and also went to a French holiday club. Anne-Laure and I bought attractive material and had plenty of strategy but they really were not that keen to speak French with her. She did not have the ‘power’ of a French teacher and the children knew she could also speak English. She did not give up and started telling them about her nephews in France, who are the same age as our boys.

Now that got them interested! What do they do, where do they go to school? Do they speak English? Not long after; Anne-Laure’s brother came over to the UK. He came with his family and the French boys played very well with our boys, despite the fact that not much language was exchanged!

Anne-Laure’s brother jokingly said that we should send our children to France for a week during the holidays. What an idea? If only……. Well actually, there was no ‘if only’. Our trusted au pair Anne Laure was happy to travel with the children to France and in fact, we insisted, the invitation had to be reciprocated, ofcourse!

So our French Au Pair travelled between France and England several time, collecting children and dropping them back home. Our boys went to France and were only spoken to in French for an entire week. They could reply in English but were encouraged to try in French and would receive a reply in French at all times. Daily expressions like ‘bonjour, ca-va’ and ‘a table’ were used consistently and became almost second nature.

When Anne-Laure left, the boys continued Le Club Francais and they also started teaching French at school. They were well ahead of their group and although they are not fluent at French by any means, they understand a fair bit and are proud to count in French and quote a lists of colours and tell me the names of animals. It is not just the skill of learning another language that matters, it is the passion to want to learn another language that matters most. Learning French is vital to children in England, yet few do so with gusto.

Now we live in Australia. My passion continues, this is one of the reasons why I have an au pair agency! The motivation here is possibly less although the school where the boys go now teaches Italian. Maybe next we should have an Italian au pair or an Italian nanny as the boys have a lot of catching up to do.

Our au pair agency places the following:

French au pairs, French nannies, French tutors, Dutch au pairs, Dutch nannies, British Au Pairs, British nannies, Italian au pairs, Italian nannies, Italian tutors, Swedish nannies, German au pairs, German nannies, German tutors.

Where we indicate nannies, these may not always be the professionally qualified nannies but sometimes simply very experienced childcare professionals. Our tutors often have a passion for teaching and the intention to teach as a career. We occasionally have applications from teachers on a career break but expect tutors to have no prior professional experience but a strong interest in education. They are ideal to compliment home schooling for example, where the structure is in place and a person with limited experience and plenty of enthusiasm can be a great asset.

Why not give us a call and let us know what you are looking for. I you wish your children to have the benefit of learning or retaining French, German or Dutch, and au pair may just be ideal!