subject: Tips for a Homeschool Classroom in French [print this page] Holding a homeschool classroom in French is a good way to familiarize students with the language. Having a second language is a significant benefit in the professional world. Of course, it has other benefits, as well, and taking the time to teach students how to speak another language is a good way to give them a leg up in the world. There are some very good ways to do this and learning from audio materials is among the best. You have to use some common sense when selecting materials, however.
Running your homeschool classroom in French will require that you be sensible about the level of materials you use. The materials made for diplomats and international businesspeople, for instance, will be too advanced for most students. They'll also be insufferably boring for most students. There are materials that use storytelling as a way of teaching language, and these can be quite effective. Some of them also use musical elements. These songs provide simple, melodic cues that can help new students to remember words simply by humming the melody or playing it back in their heads.
If you're going to have a classroom in French, you need to make sure that these songs and stories aren't above the level of the children and that they're appropriate for them. They also need to be engaging enough to keep older students interested. Musical theater type materials are excellent for this. The musical elements are usually enough to make younger students sit through the spoken parts, and the actual plot of the story is enough to keep older students interested in the study. The importance of fun in learning tends to be very much underrated by too many instructors and too many schools.
You can have a successful classroom in French, provided that you choose good materials. If you choose materials that are too far above the level of your students, you'll likely find them disengaged very quickly. You can also learn from the same materials along with your students. In fact, this is a great way to give yourself a better understanding of what's challenging and what's easy about the materials you selected. It also makes it more interesting for the children, as you'll be learning along with them and the activity is transformed from schoolwork into something that's taken on and enjoyed together.
