Minority language playdates are the things that dreams are made of. Unfortunately, for Poppette and I, they are also rather rare at the moment.
Some French friends of ours have a little boy who is one month younger than Poppette and is being raised bilingual French/ English using the Mother Language at Home technique. These friends used to live close by but unfortunately, due to work commitments, moved to another city recently :(
Anyhow, just over a week ago they came to visit for the day... a fabulous day where only French was spoken.
The great thing to come out of this for Poppette is that she had lots of fun.
The great thing to come out of it for me was that I got to see first hand that my daughter truly does understand French even when spoken by someone other than her maman.
Sounds like a wonderful day! I was just blogging about this very topic after a semi-German playdate we had last week. It makes such a difference for Aleksander to hear someone other than me speaking German, I think. So my friend and I are going to try an all-German playdate this week!! I'm so excited.
ReplyDeleteI know Poppette is still too young for school, but I wonder if you looked into any French schools, maybe you could connect that way with other French-speaking families? I also recently started a German story time at my local library, and I've been pleasantly surprised by how many German-speakers there are. I think we'll be expanding our playdates to include even more children soon enough.
Good luck on your search! You never know where you'll find other French-speakers!!
Hi Kate... I am excited to say that I stumbled upon a Meetup Group last week trying to organise French playdates..... fingers crossed. I will keep you posted.
DeleteI have found we start meeting French children around just by speaking French out and about. On Friday afternoon we met a French family at our local museum and played all afternoon, I was so impressed with A's French in that context, so were they which was nice! We exchanged numbers so hopefully we'll see them again.
ReplyDeleteThat's fabulous... I would just love that... My ears always prick up when I hear someone speaking French but it doesnt seem to happen too often around these parts...
DeleteYou really can't beat peer pressure for improving language skills! On our recent trip to France I made sure I booked them into different 'ateliers' to be sure they would get to play and chat with other French children. My daughter actually goes into a French zone when we spend long enough in a francophone environment and refuses to talk English to me!! Good luck with hunting down more French playdates :-)
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