Childcare: Lost in translation

Jenny Colgan blogs on bringing up children in France.

The problem with learning a language, as my husband mournfully pointed out, is finding people willing to chat to you in it. Let’s face it, everyone in the entire world speaks English much much better and faster than you can possibly contribute the other way round, so you really have to fling yourself at neighbours, shop assistants and anyone you can pin up against a wall for a few minutes, ignoring the panicky look in their eyes, and forcibly hurl conjugated verbs at them. I dislike it, but find myself oiling up to my friend’s mother and always engaging her in chat, not because I really like her (though she is delightful), but because she doesn’t speak a word of English.

However there is one area that we’re getting a lot of practice; namely, trying to find some childcare for the toddler. Having failed to get him a nursery place by not putting his name down some eighteen months before conception, we’ve been given a list of women who do assistance maternelle; state subsidised childminding in an inspected home with no more than four children. That sounded ideal for us, desperately trying to get Wallace to pick up at least some of the language before he starts school in September.

We don’t have to send him to the local school of course; there’s always the international school in nearby Cannes where they speak English, but we were trying to keep him from wearing a pink scarf and becoming addicted to hard drugs for as long as possible.

Plus, we really don’t want to become the full-on ex-pat cliches, not learning the language or integrating. Okay, so perhaps we do pour slightly strong gin and tonics on a Friday night. And maybe I sneak a Sunday Times from the international newsagents at the weekend. But that’s it, honestly. We don’t even have hilariously colourful builder.

So, on the phone it is to try and track someone down. Most of these women are ex-teachers, so are very hot on your pronunciation. So you say something, they get you to repeat it correctly, then they say something back which you don’t understand and you have to get them to repeat it, and the whole thing takes quite some time. In fact, perhaps I should just coldcall people, rather than pay our French teacher, Bernadette the Martinet lots of money to terrify the life out of us once a week and rant on about how much she regrets voting for Nicolas Sarkozy, le president bling-bling.

However, I think I have finally learned that the situation is this:

1. Assistance maternelle is really only for babies of full-time workers waiting for nursery places, and not over-grown nearly three year olds.

2. They only do nine to five, as otherwise it’s not worth their time financially, but as we’re lucky enough not to have to put the kids in full-time care, we’re not going to.

3. So. Stuff you.

Wallace’s third birthday is on us.

"NOW AH AM THREE AH GO SCHOOL!" he mentions proudly to everyone he meets. "AH GO SCHOOL TOMORROW MUMMY?"

I wonder if he’ll enjoy it quite so much when he gets there and finds he can’t understand a word anyone says?

Comments

[j]

Flannie, British schools are much more used to this than French ones. We have so many children arriving with little English. Move to a fairly international area, and go to see the head teacher beforehand.

My son went to the University nursery specialising in international children at 3 (mainly for a bit of preschool practice)and I saw many children from overseas learning English. Also many children start school here having been brought up speaking mainly Urdu for instance. All infant schools will have someone for the children who speak English as an additional language, whose job it is to teach the little ones English. It wont be perfect but there is a system.

[Mark]

Why not try one of those international playgroups having tried the Halte Garderie which turned out to be cheap babysitting so we sent our son to KidooLand nr Cannes where he did 2 mornings in french and 2 in english ... the transition into school was seamless!

[Mark]

Why not try one of those international playgroups having tried the Halte Garderie which turned out to be cheap babysitting so we sent our son to KidooLand nr Cannes where he did 2 mornings in french and 2 in english ... the transition into school was seamless!

[Flannie]

J,

I am very interested in your last comment because we are French people planning to go the other way round: living France to settle in England.
I have already enjoyed living in England myself before but I am worried with my children. My daughter is still a baby but my son is 3 and a half.
I don't think we will make a move before he is 5. I wonder somtimes how he will cope with the language issue.

[Jean Jones]

Sorry, yes, I do remember that post but not that it was you! I don't come on here every day and my poor old middle-aged brain has big holes in it, so sorry about forgetting the details. All fine here, thanks, and hope it's the same with you.

[j]

we've blogged together on this before Jean Jones, about parking I think, and the fact that your boy has just started working serving food? I remember saying I'd be very happy with that for my own son in due course.

I have a 16 year old, plus one mildly disabled girl and a very severely disabled boy, and I grew up with a severely learning disabled brother who I helped into adult life. Hence I was well-placed to look after my clients in Germany with some compassion and understanding- and also long experience.

But I also understand that you were upset and I'm sorry as I also get cross when people blog thoughtlessly- so apologies and I hope all is going well.

[Jean Jones]

No, I didn't know. I am prepared to believe I am oversensitive because of my own nearly-adult learning disabled son.

[j]

Jean Jones,

I didnt feel that way, I was just trying to make a point.

As you know, I have two disabled children myself.

[Jean Jones]

J - if you felt that way about wiping the bottoms of adult learning disabled people, you should have been in a different job. They deserve more than disgust from their carers and if you were only there to learn the language you would surely have been better off mixing with people other than morons. Oops, I mean cretins. Or do I mean idiots or imbeciles?

[Sarah]

Our son went to the maternelle at 3 years old and now at 5 is in the grande section of his local school. He is one of only two english speakers in the school.

He is now one of the best students in his class. There were problems but finally he was accepted by the other kids and after a meeting with his teacher today (also the school head), I can put my hand on my heart and say he is happy.

His trajectory was in a series of steps. Long periods of what seemed to be no progress and then words coming from nowhere and nothing again for a while. This seems to be quite common. He understands EVERYTHING said to him and now speaks like a little french boy.

Me? that's a very different kettle of fish. Making progress but not with the style and élan of my boy. He's correcting my pronunciation now ;-)

Enjoy all the time you have with your son before school begins. You will miss him dreadfully. And the school day is too, too long.

[j]

or you could take up a decadent adult hobby. I learnt French offically by working as a teacher for a year but actually by joining a drunken group of musicians and going on tour a lot while I was there. They need to be too lazy to be bothered with speaking English- which after the first pichet, they will be.

Join the local dirty dancing association. Alone. Sans your bloke. Or anyone else who speaks English. :)

[Junilou]

Children arrive at our local primary school with no English very often as well. Usually, after three months they speak perfect English, but pretend they don't understand in front of their parents. Literally, I have seen a bright little five year old speak English perfectly with my daughter at a playdate only to revert to yes/no mode when her mummy showed up.
I agree that the best way to learn the language is to work. Maybe you could volunteer at the "Mairie"? Or offer to teach English at the local school. Or you could get a girl from the village to come and baby sit your little boy a few hours a day, while you are there - you'll have to communicate with her in some way.

[j]

ps advice from an old lag on how to get fluent...

you cant really do it by chatting in the street. YOu need a job, fairly crap but not so crap that only immigrants do it ( I once spent three months as a chambermaid in Germany and came out speaking really quite a lot of Turkish). My Italian was learnt by hanging out with my boyfriend's ancient crone landlady, whose idea of a good time was to take me to put flowers on graves, and her three very very old friends. I learnt German wokring in a home for adult learning disabled people. Yes, wiping bottoms.

Can you volunteer in the village at the old folks' home, church youth group, disabled children's creche? whatever needs doing? You cant really expect them to give you a proper job, you know, but a bit of street chat has too restricted a vocab. Six months in and all you'll be able to say is, "no, she never! oooh!" or "looks like rain again".

[j]

children arrive at our local primary with no English all the time. They are usually twinned with a fluent English speaker who also speaks their native language for the first term, and after that they fly. Maybe you should ask the school how they intend to cope? There's bound to be a bilingual kid in the class.