Mulberry’s French Program

 Starting in Grade One, French is a daily part of the curriculum, using songs, rhymes, stories and puppet shows to establish a rich appreciation of Canadian French language and culture.  

Children in the Primary Grades have very strong imitative capacities.  The “new” language is primarily experienced through the children’s senses as a combination of sounds-shape and rhythm, and only secondly as the carrier of meaning.  A wide basic vocabulary and useful expressions are learned through oral repetition using: mime, choral recitation, song, guessing games, rhymes, dramatic dialogues, puppets shows and dance. 

 Children make crafts or drawings in their ‘’Grand Cahier de Français” (French book) related to the story.  Words and usages are playfully “absorbed” into memory and will be grasped in their exact meaning later.   They also serve as an anchor for grammatical structure to be lifted to consciousness later.

In the Upper Grades, our French program builds on this foundation through the introduction of music, drama and art. The net effect is that our students not only learn to speak and read and write French, they also learn to appreciate the culture and history that this beautiful language describes.

Starting in Grade 4 the children begin the fine task of recording all that has been learned so far by heart in their Grand Cahier de Français.  They are invited to observe and describe regularities in the structure of the language and most importantly, play with them!  In Grade 5 grammar is introduced (verb conjugation, spelling rules…).  The children create their own Grammar book and Language book (similar to a Main Lesson Book).  Still, a large part of the lesson is dedicated to experience the living qualities of the language through oral expression: Poetry, dialogues, speech exercises, singing. 

The Main Lesson and French teachers work in close collaboration to bring in a meaningful way a Second Language.   For example, after a new subject has been introduced in the Main Lesson (in the children’s first language) a particular topic can be explored in more details in the Second language (French) lessons.

 JohanneTalbot, Mulberry’s French Teacher, was born and raised in a Québec francophone family.  After completing her BA in Graphic Design in Montreal, she obtained her Waldorf Teacher certificate from the Rudolf Steiner Centre Toronto.  She has been teaching French in Waldorf schools since 2002.