Foreign Language Education
Discover your place at Austin International School, even if you don't have a French language background. Our exceptional FLE program (French as a Foreign Language) is tailored for students in grades 1-8 who require additional support in acquiring the French language.
Learning a new language should be a fun and interesting adventure for children. We need to make sure students are enjoying the process of learning and keeping them engaged.
Skills Focus
During each week, the Foreign Language program will focus on 5 main skills:
- Listening: I can recognize familiar words and very basic phrases concerning myself, my family and immediate concrete surroundings when people speak slowly and clearly.
- Speaking: I can use simple phrases and sentences to describe where I live and people I know.
- Reading: I can understand familiar names, words and very simple sentences, for example on notices and posters or in catalogs.
- Writing: I can write a short, simple postcard, for example, sending holiday greetings. I can fill in forms with personal details, for example, entering my name, nationality and address on a registration form.
- Interacting: I can interact in a simple way provided the other person is prepared to repeat or rephrase things at a slower rate of speech and help me formulate what I’m trying to say. I can ask and answer simple questions in areas of immediate need or on very familiar topics.
Program Phases
1. Exposure
August-October
• First introduction to the language
• Focused on vocabulary of immediate environment (self, family, school)
• High frequency sentences and expressions in school.
• Emotional wellbeing for the transition.
2. Consolidation
October-March
• Reuse of vocabulary learned in Phase 1
• Introduction to new vocabulary for extended environment (city, friends, climate, etc.) and subjects (geography, history, math, sciences)
• Reading and oral comprehension
• Understanding instructions
• Guided sentence building
• Answering questions
• Introduction to grammar and phonics
• Self-confidence building
3. Production
March-June
• Participating with full sentences
• Oral presentations
• Writing sentences and short texts
• Social interaction
• Detailed reading and oral comprehension
• Subject based learning (language, math, sciences, geography, history)
• Becoming active students and social actors.
Tips for French Learning at Home!
1. Watch videos or TV in French
Introduce new series or movies in French, with English subtitles (avoid chainging their favorite show to French).
2. Listen to music or children’s songs in French.
Many children video channels in Youtube have French versions of the same songs they might already know in English. (Monde des Titounis, Little Baby Bum, Boutchoo!)
3. Listen to audiobooks in French.
There are many audiobooks online or in Youtube. You can also subscribe to the French library online Culturethèque.
4. Label things at home with French vocabulary (bed/le lit, kitchen/la cuisine, etc.)
5. Install game-based language learning apps for kids in their devices (Duolingo Kids, Babel, Gus on the Go).
6. Learn about Francophone countries together.