' Children in Form IIB have easy French Lessons with pictures which they describe, but in IIA while still engaged on the Primary French Course children begin to use the method which is as full of promise in the teaching of languages as in English, that is, they are expected to narrate the sentence or paragraph which has been read to them. Young children find little difficulty in using French vocables, but at this stage the teacher should with the children's help translate the little passage which is to be narrated, them re-read it in French and require the children to narrate it. This they do after a time surprisingly well, and the act of narrating gives them some command of French phrases as far as they go, much more so than if they learnt the little passage off by heart. They learn French songs in both divisions and act French Fables (by Violet Partington) in Form IIA. This method of closely attentive reading of the text followed by narration is continued in each of the Forms. […]
We have not space to follow in detail the work of the P.U.S. in French, which of course includes the usual attention to French Grammar…
This hitherto unused power of concentrated attention in the study of languages whether ancient or modern appears to hold promise of making us at last a nation of linguists. We have attained very good results in Italian and German by this same method, both in the House of Education and the Practising School belonging to it, and we are in a fair way to produce noticeable results in Latin. The classical mistress writes,––
"Latin is taught at the House of Education by means of narration after each section has been thoroughly studied in grammer, syntax and style. The literature studied increases in difficulty as the pupil advances in grammar, etc. Nothing but good Latin is ever narrated, so the pupil acquires style as well as structure. The substance of the passage is usually reproduced with the phraseology and style of the original and both students and children learn what is really Latin and realise that it is a language and not a mere grammar." '
from: A Philosophy of Education, pp. 211-212
We studied Swedish last year, but I wasn’t satisfied with the content for reading and listening. This year for Swedish, we will be using living Swedish - short stories and real books, and listening as much as possible to native speakers. I have found several Swedish resources online, and I have ordered some picture books from Sweden, which all the girls helped to choose We will also continue learning a new Swedish song each term, and some Scripture memory.
I read a post on this topic a little while ago by The Linguist on Language Learning: Which Language to Study. The success of the German learners is encouraging and falls in very well with what Charlotte Mason has said. I hope we do as well!
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Sense & Sensibility ePatterns