The Bambino's nursery in Kuwait

So we decided not to enroll the Bambino in one of the nurseries frequented by expatriate children here in Kuwait.  We figured that while he is still so young and his mind like a sponge, why not put him in a nursery with Arabic speaking children instead?  So he goes to a private, upscale Kuwaiti nursery.  The children wear uniforms (they're only two years old!).  The teacher-child ratio is one teacher for six children.  The materials are from Neinhuis.  The languages of the classroom are English, Arabic and French.

The nursery being the most "authentic" Montessori nursery in Kuwait (other nurseries in Kuwait call themselves Montessori but are more "Montessori-inspired" than actual Montessori), there are very few "toys" in the classroom.  The closest thing you get to toys are stacking blocks, puzzles and an abacus.  This being the toddler class, these toys are acceptable.

There is a practical life section, which real glass pitchers of water and bowls to practice pouring and transferring with a spoon.

There are also the standard Montessori mathematic and sensorial materials, like the pink tower and the cylinders.  These materials are actually meant for age three and up but the school decided to put them in the toddler room as well.

And here is the Bambino during his adaptation period at the school (no uniform yet - that came a week later).

We recently had parent-teacher interviews.  You read it right - a parent-teacher interview regarding our two-year old child.  Never before have we encountered a nursery that gives parent-teacher interviews for toddlers.  Not that I'm complaining.  It's always fun to hear how my two-year old boy acts at his nursery when we're not there.   Oh, and this "interview" didn't take place at the school, in the classroom, as you would expect them to.  No no.  We received a formal invitation to a tea at the very chichi Le Notre Restaurant and had the interview there.

So far, we're happy with our decision to put him in the posh Kuwaiti nursery.  Now if only I could understand the Bambino when he tries to say something in Arabic!

English class at the French school

I've already posted once about the Bambina's English class at school.  She is in "CP" (first grade) at the French primary school here in Antananarivo and her class has "anglais" twice a week - English for French kids.

I stated in my previous post that I believed that this class would be, at best, a complete waste of time for the Bambina and at worst, harmful to the Bambina's French-English bilingualism.

So now I'm reporting back.  The times that the Bambina has talked about her English class at school, she has said that it is very very boring.   That was to be expected. But she has also said that the teacher makes mistakes.  Last week, she said that the teacher, a Malagasy who almost certainly learnt to speak English at a French school, is teaching the students the parts of the body in English.  In doing so, she points to her head and says "ED".  "Repetez, les enfants : ED".

So the teacher is telling the children that the word for "tête" in English is "ed".  Not "head" - "ed".  And she is getting the children to repeat this word over and over, thereby engraining this hideously incorrect pronunciation into each child's brain.

Ever wonder why the French speak English so poorly?  Now we know.

But not only does this teacher drop her "h's" when she shouldn't, she adds one when there isn't any.  The Bambina has an Australian classmate, Ella.  The English teacher calls her.... you guessed it... "Hella".  What the hell?

All of which leads me to conclude that these English lessons aren't just harmful for my little Bambina's bilingual capacities.  They're not doing the other kids any good either.  The children are learning some English, yes, but bad English.  English that later on will cause listeners to think, "this person doesn't speak English very well."

Any TEFL teachers out there?

Since January, I've been teaching English in our home to French and Malagasy people. I've also been teaching English to a group of grade 10 students at the Lycée Français here in Tananarive.

This is the first time I've tried teaching since I obtained my Certificate for English Language Teaching to Adults from Cambridge University (CELTA) at International House in Rome, back in 2008 (I got pregnant after that and no one would hire me, and then I had the baby and we moved to Madagascar, so it took me a while to get back into teaching).

Some observations:

1. ) I try to use the communicative approach but students really resist this method. They want me to stand up in front of the class and just talk and explain to them. They don't want to try to speak the language themselves. I find it especially a challenge to use this approach when students share a common language (usually French, in my students' case) because as soon as you tell them to talk about something in pairs or to the class, they start off in their common language! Grrrr.  What's more, since they know that I speak French, they often will try to speak to me in French instead of trying to say it in English.  Grrr.

2.) The teenagers at the lycée have a decent to good speaking level.  In many cases, their English is better than their parents' English. Now, I am dealing with the more advanced students but nonetheless I am impressed when I think back to my level of French back in grade 10.  One of my students has read the Twilight series three times, in English. 

On the other hand, their written English is not so good. Their regular English teachers also use the communicative approach for teaching, so maybe the poor writing skills is evidence that this approach is good for learning to speak but not for learning to write.

3.) The present perfect tense is perhaps the hardest grammatical concept in English to learn.  Even my teenagers at the lycée don't seem to fully "get it" and I am becoming persuaded that unless you have grown up with English or have moved to an English-speaking country for good (see, I've just used it twice, no make that three times!), you will never fully "get it" as a non-native speaker (unless you're Spanish-speaking, 'cause apparently Spanish has the same thing).   

Actually, there is one thing harder than understanding the present perfect - undertanding when to use the present perfect tense (e.g. I've gone) and when to use the present perfect continuous (e.g., I've been going).  It might seem obvious to you as a native speaker but to a non-native speaker who hasn't been immersed in English and who is learning the concept as part of an English lesson, this is tedious and complicated stuff.

4. ) I'm not in the right market. I have been trained to teach adults. In fact, adults don't care too much about their level of English anymore. But they really really really care about their kids being able to speak English fluently. I've been asked again and again and again to start a class for kids but the thing is,

• teaching children is not the same as teaching adults, and I haven't been trained to teach kids;

• teaching children would mean that I would have to give lessons when those children, and therefore my children, are not in school, meaning when my own daughter was home and I had things to do with her; and

• I honestly don't think that language lessons are that much use to a child under seven years of age. As small children have minds of sponges, they get much more from the immersion approach, not the lesson approach, and the immersion approach requires more than one or two hours per weeks with a "teacher" for the child to get anything out of it.  Proof: Dutch people my age speak pretty good English, yet they only started learning it formally when they were around eleven or twelve years of age.  Their advantage comes not from taking lessons when they were only five years old but rather from watching television shows and movies in their original language version (no dubbing!).

But I will be the first to admit that I could make much more money out of teaching English if I taught children!

Any other TEFL teachers out there?  I would love to hear what you think and how your experiences compare with mine.

Online Language Learning for your Teen (or maybe even you)

Is your teenager interested in improving her skills in speaking a foreign language but somehow can't get beyond the tedious classroom grammar lessons?  You might introduce her to Livemocha, an interactive online community that includes lessons, chat and motivational tools to keep you (or your older kid) on track in learning a language or two. It's aim is "to build confidence, comprehension and conversational skills."   Livemocha allows you to test your knowledge of a language, take online lessons and best of all, talk with native speakers.  It's focus seems to be on conversational skills, which is precisely what most foreign language lessons in school fail to provide.

You have to  be at least 13 years old to participate and no, it's not free.