Re: Verb specificity (Was: Re: Natural Order of Events)

On Wed, Jan 28, 2009 at 8:53 PM, Matthew Turnbull <ave.jor@...> wrote:

>
> That would be so awesome!
> - apart from that I was never taught that at all in immersion
> (Manitoba, Canada) but they really never taught us the language at
> all, just sort of spoke it at us, to this day my brother with a good 5
> years of eduction in french still says (with a think accent) "je ne
> peux parler francais" and we were never ONCE taught the difference
> between connaitre(to know) and savoir(to know)...apparently we were
> just supposed to figure it out?
> Basically, Canada needs to fix it's second language education system,
> because really, it just isn't working, you can't learn a language
> effectively by kinda listening to it for ~5h a day while all the while
> speaking English to everyone but the teacher, after the age of 5.
>
My kids' experiences in French Immersion were different from yours, Matthew.
For one thing, the kids were not allowed to speak English during classes
that were in French -- not even between one another. The rule was more
firmly enforced as they got into the higher grades.

And they were taught grammar, beginning seriously in grade 4.

But it is true that it doesn't stick as well as it could; English everywhere
just puts so much pressure on the use of French where it isn't mandated.
Only the kids that really have a fascination with French really develop
fluency; mine are both conversational, but the elder transferred out in
grade 5 to go to a gifted program, and the younger in grade 9 to go to an
arts high school.

Funny enough, the younger now uses French to talk to me when she wants to
discuss something in front of her friends without them understanding... of
course, many of them have some other home language -- Russian, Cantonese,
Tamil, etc. -- that they can use to do the same thing.

Reply