Only three... but we're learning French

BONJOUR: Alfie Hempstead and Zara Griffiths, both aged three, enjoy their first French class. BONJOUR: Alfie Hempstead and Zara Griffiths, both aged three, enjoy their first French class.

NURSERY school children have been saying “bonjour” to a new language.

Children from Treetops Nursery in Birlingham, near Pershore, have been developing new language skills with the introduction of a weekly French class.

Youngsters in the Clever Crocs pre-school room are enjoying the interactive sessions run by Helen Broome who has a degree in the language and has also spent time working in France.

Puppets, stories and French nursery rhymes have been enjoyed by the class and every new word is accompanied by an action.

Deputy manager Lisa O’Neill, who also runs the Clever Crocs room, said: “I can’t believe how quickly the children are picking up French words.

“Between them they can remember the name of every single animal that we learnt this week.”

The nursery is holding a storybook themed open day on Saturday, January 26, from 11am to 2pm.

 

Comments(2)

Lew Smoralz says...
11:54am Wed 16 Jan 13

The traditional British idea of starting to learn other languages at senior school has always been a joke in our family.

I was speaking two languages at two years of age, but struggled to learn French, German and Latin when I started the Grammar School at 11 years of age. I wish that I had started to learn them much younger.

This is a great idea, at nursery age they don't even understand that they are being taught, it is just the natural infant learning process.

Keep up the good work!

More Tea Vicar says...
12:36pm Wed 16 Jan 13

Good for them.

I am strongly anti-EU, and like most people of 'that persuasion', I am actually very pro-European, and culturally open.

It is great for the kids, and for society and the economy, if we develop better language skills.

We will always be hamstrung by the fact that English is so widely spoken. It is easy for most mainland Europeans to work out which foreign language to learn first; generally English.

For us, it's not so easy. But this is a great step, let's hope they keep it up.

I would love to see the mainstream TV channels showing more foreign news, and much more foreign-language programme and film output. The Danish, French, Swedish and Italian shows on BBC4 are a welcome addition, but let's see more, and on mainstream channels at peak viewing times!

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