L'anglais des enfants

For the past few months, I’ve been giving private, weekly English lessons to a family of three young children, ages eight, six, and four. The experience has been nothing short of adorable, as well as humorous in a very different way than is teaching adults.

First, there are the looks. Children have no emotional filter, and they wear their hearts on more than just their sleeves. The lessons always start out with expressions of joy and enthusiasm, but that all stops short when they can’t remember a particular word or expression. The kids get this look that’s packed with so many feelings: fear, shame, stress, and a twinge of constipation. I always wonder if this is a product of internal pressure, or of the way French schoolteachers handle “failure.” It’s cute, though, and I always have to stifle a small giggle before telling them in my most reassuring voice, “Ne vous inquietez pas! On va reviser.” (Don’t worry! We’ll review.)

Au contraire, they have the funniest range of looks when they successfully remember the vocabulary: the eight-year-old boy shows off his biceps all Popeye-like, the six-year-old girl flashes a smug little grin, and the four-year-old boy bounces in his seat while waving a fist in the air.

Second, there’s the way they speak English. Hearing a thick French accent from the mouths of babes is just heart-melting. Every time I arrive, they belt out, “Eh-llo Jess-EE-kah! Ow ah yooo?” And when I respond and ask them in kind, I get a resounding chorus of, “Varrreeee gude!” So darn cute.

I teach them orally, as two thirds of them can’t really read in French yet, and the only visual aids are pictures, not words. Therefore their pronunciation is based solely on what they hear—or what they think they hear. We do lots of repetition to avoid situations like these:

Me: Pur-ple
Them: Po-po!!!

Me: Wa-ter-me-lon
Them: Wah-dah-meh-now!!!

Me: Hi-ppo-pa-ta-mus
Them: Ee-po-pah-dah-sance

It’s great when they have a eureka moment and make connections with other words they’ve heard before:

Me: Yellow
Little girl: Ah, ouai, yellow! C’est comme eh-llo [hello]!

Me: Turtle
Little boy: Toh-toh, comme po-po!
Which invariably results in the others confusing the sounds of purple and turtle, but that’s not too strange of a mix-up.

The funniest is when they forget a word, they make that anxious face described above, and then guess—which usually entails making up a word derived from French, with a little twist. For example: bread becomes ‘pehn’ (based on the French pain, milk becomes ‘laid’ (based on the French lait, and rabbit becomes ‘lapahno’ (based on the French lapin).

Third, there are the games we play. I have lots of little pictures of the vocab we’ve learned, which are often parlayed into a game of “Meh-moh-rrrreeeee.” They love it, although it can get frustrating because the oldest kid (who is the fastest learner) tends to dominate and answer before his siblings get a chance. I think I’ve given him the “you have to play fair” speech 50 times—but as it’s in my broken French (more on that later), perhaps my admonishment loses some of its teeth. When we learned animal vocab, I took a risk with a boisterous game of “name that animal,” featuring the best of barnyard sounds (i.e., I name an animal in English and you make the sound, or vice versa). I discovered that animal sounds cross language barriers. Sheep, dogs, cats, cows, horses, you name it—their noises are identical in French. Except for roosters, which go, “Co-co-ri-co!” I think I much prefer the French version to 'cock-a-doodle-do,' which is kind of stupid and little bit dirty, depending on how you look at it.

Their absolute favorite thing, ever, is “See-mone Sez.” Oh, how they love this game. I used it a while back to review the vocab of the body—you know, “Simon says touch your nose/back/shoulders/etc.”—and ever since, they ask me first thing if we can play Simon Says immediately. I’ve found that it’s a very effective carrot to keep them focused until the end of the lesson. We play it during the last five minutes every week, and they get super competitive, counting their points in English (sweet) and squabbling over who touched their ears or eyes first. The truly hilarious part is that even though we play it every.single.time, they tend to come down with vocab amnesia. I’ll say, “Simon says…touch…your…feet!” And then it’s a fast-paced process of trial-and-error. “Les bras?” “Les genous?” “La visage?” And so on. Sometimes they forget a word we did several turns previous. But it’s fun and educational and how could I deny them these five minutes of English bliss?

Lastly, there are the opportunities to laugh at myself. Somehow, almost every week, I wind up suffering the humiliation of getting my French corrected by an eight-year-old. My French can be on fire one day, and then just crumble on other days, particularly when I work with these kids. I don’t know what it is—perhaps it’s because I come to their house after a full work day and a hot-as-f*#& ride on the RER and I’m just spent, or perhaps I’m mimicking my surroundings (their English is in its earliest, earliest stages). I make little mistakes, really, but whenever I do, the eight-year-old will get all haughty and say in his best approximation of an adult voice, “Mais, non, Jess-eee-kah, c’est ‘très pres,’ pas ‘très presque.’” I'll smack my head in mock self-deprecation and say, “Bein, ouai, bien sûr—vous savez que mon français n’est pas pafait.” Then the little girl will clasp my hand in hers and says in a very serious voice, “C’est pas grave. C’est normal quand on apprend une nouvelle langue. Surtout, vous êtes prof d’anglais.” (It’s not so serious [that you made a mistake]. It’s normal when we learn a new language. Above all, you’re an English teacher.) Aawwwwwww! Children may not be able to hide their emotions, but their capacity to be sensitive is impressive.