One of the biggest challenges to teaching my children French is that I do not know it. Teaching them Spanish has been fairly easy since I just speak and play with them in Spanish. I have needed to run to my Spanish/English dictionary on occasion but for the most part it has not required a lot of work on my part.
My decision to learn French along with my children has reminded me how difficult is it to learn a language as an adult. I am now fluent in Spanish but it has taken me twenty years to get to the level of fluency that my four year old has obtained in the last two years. This has just reinforced my determination to continue with the French while my children are young and they still have the ability to soak up languages like a sponge.
The two keys to success for a non-native speaker to teach their children a foreign language are preparation and fun. Since I do not know the vocabulary or phrases in French myself, I have to learn them beforehand. I make myself cheat sheets with the words and phrases that I want to use during the lesson.
In this lesson I wanted to say (in order):
Are you hungry?
I am hungry.
I am not hungry.
Do you want a fly?
I want a fly.
***Correction from card below. Forgive me, I am a beginner. :)
I am hungry. J'ai faim
After I am prepared, I try to make it fun. We painted these green frogs since it was frog week.Finally, we play in French. I would ask Diego's frog if he was hungry and if he said yes, we would still a fly to his tongue. When his frog's tongue was full of flies, we practiced saying that he was not hungry.