Asociace Entract en France

18 rue Bonaparte

75 006 Paris

entractenfrance@yahoo.fr

  

Nowadays, eighteen years after the Velvet revolution, many Czechs travel abroad. Some of them, especially the young ones, even move abroad for a short or longer time period. The majority of them then strive to bring their children up in a bilingual and bicultural environment. Linguistic educational establishments, similar to the “Czech School Without Borders”, set up by the Entract en France association at the Czech Cultural Centre in Paris, would help them to implement this difficult task.

 

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Entract en France Association is a charitable civic group. All its instructors and committee are volunteers. It was founded in 2001 under the patronage of the Czech Cultural Centre in Paris with the main objective of promoting the Czech culture in France.

In the early days the association concentrated more on organising concerts and since 2004 its full focus has been on Czech language teaching for children living in France. Within a short time of three years the Association managed to develop tie-in language education system designed for children from 18 months to 11 years of age. This is entirely in line with the European Union Study from October 2006, clearly pointing to benefits of learning foreign languages as soon as possible at an early age:  http://europa.eu/languages/fr/document/97.

 

COURSES

 

The Association holds every week, apart from the summer school break, language groups divided according to the age of the child. Children from 18 months to 11 years of age attend the free artistic activity group linked with language ability development of the child: book and poetry reading, repeating songs etc. The group for children from 3 to 6 years resembles with its educational-instructive structure the Czech nursery school. The children in this age come close to Czech history by means of important state anniversaries and traditional holidays. Children in school age to 11 years can attend the “Czech school” every Saturday, where the Czech language, literature, geography and history is taught in accordance with the Framework Education Programme of the Ministry of Education of the Czech Republic.

 

METHODOLOGY

 

The classes are conducted in the method of “total immersion”, and in the duration of the group the child is exclusively in a Czech environment.

This approach is totally different to learning language in the classical method, consisting mainly in translation of individual words, and children can enlarge their situational vocabulary faster. It also helps them to grasp the language structure faster. The majority of them are also growing up in a multilingual environment and that means they can make the language their own in the most natural way available to them.

This method very closely resembles the teaching method presently recommended by the European Union, that is teaching at least one subject in the given foreign language:

 

“Teaching a subject in a foreign language, integrated into the foreign language teaching (EMILE) in European schools is founded, according to the didactic research of foreign languages, on several particularly important methodological principles. For a person learning a foreign language, is necessary to be involved in an authentic communication situation.”

 

The classes are taught by Czech teachers with an individual approach to every child, because the language competence of the enrolled children varies to a great extent. This is the reason, why the Association is going to start offering short language courses entitled “Czech as a Foreign Language”. These enable children to catch up faster with e.g. vocabulary and fully join the offered activities and classes.

 

CHILDREN

 

Children involved in the groups most often come from mixed marriages, e.g. French-Czech, Czech-English or American, Czech-German etc., where there are at least two languages spoken in the family.

The second largest group is made up of children, whose both parents are Czech and have been living abroad for a long time. These children, often born abroad, or moved abroad shortly after being born, attend in most cases a French school and their parents want to acquaint them with the environment, in which children grow up in the Czech Republic.

The last category is represented by children from French families, who have lived in the Czech Republic for some time, and who want to preserve the Czech language competence of their children following their return back to France.

 

The groups are also attended by children accompanied by their grandparents of Czech origin. In most cases it is children, whose parents have a heavy workload and do not have time to devote themselves fully to bilingual or bicultural education. Czech speaking grandparents, to whom our language groups represent such a language environment and a great mental support, that they do not hesitate to get involved more in the language education of their grandchildren. This is often the case also for those grandparents, who did not manage the language education of their children to the fullest extent, and all the more, they are engaged and motivated by their grandchildren.

 

The Saturday school is attended also by children, whose parents stay in France for a short working period, and wish to ensure a certain continuity in school attendance of their children.

 

This year, the groups have been attended by 60 children on a regular basis and 100 children in total irregularly. Every school year, the interest of parents is increasing, which is connected with the demographic situation: according to the  Czech authorities statistics, the number of mixed marriages and their children born in France has in the last five years definitely increased and keeps increasing. (specific data at the end of summer 2007). The same scenario is undoubtedly repeated in other large university cities throughout Europe.

 

INFORMATION CENTRE

 

The Association has, apart from its prime educational role, another no less important task: to set up an Information Centre for all the families interested in the bilingual education. The experiences show that this calls for a considerable effort on the part of both parents. It is therefore extremely important to inform families about the benefits of bilingual or multilingual education that are clearly demonstrated by contemporary scientific studies. The tendency of the parents is to leave the bilingual education at the start. This is a result of the pressure of the immediate environment, whose misunderstanding has its origins mainly from ignorance. The Association aims to prevent this from happening by its regular activities. When children reach 10-12 years they once and for all lose the ability to learn another language “perfectly-bilingually”, that means, they can use two or more languages just as they do their native tongue.

 

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INFORMATION CENTRE

 

The Association is about to extend its educational range even further.

In this school year it is adding to the Saturday classes a series of entertaining lectures “History as a play – the famous people of the Czech past”.

For older children the Association is planning regular visits of museums and galleries in Paris, with a specialised guided tour about history of art in Czech language. The objective is not only the expansion of vocabulary in a different context and exploring the art world but also targeted familiarisation with Czech art every time it is exhibited. This purpose will be also served by exhibitions held by the Czech Cultural Centre provided their contents are accessible to the child’s mind.

The Association would also like to export the Czech classes beyond Paris, to the regions. In this Internet age, it is possible to give and correct language homework at a distance, and there already exist many teaching programs in an electronic format with a remote co-ordination function and personal consultation several times a year.

 

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CONCLUSION

                 

The language education structure “Czech School Without Borders” set up by the Entract en France Association  in Paris, now represents a tried and proven model, which can be easily transferred to other European cities. There are many Czech students in them, who, like Paris, can assist in a specialist way. College of Education students sent as a part of the Erasmus programme can also fulfil their work teaching experience, which will be for them from a professional point of view very interesting.

As is mentioned above, language teaching of children at an early age is very beneficial. Bilingual education, as the most beneficial form of this learning, leads to a profound language competence which cannot be compared to one acquired in later age by the classical teaching method. Bilingual children represent for the Czech Republic a great potential. When they reach adulthood, they will be able, thanks to their linguistic competence, to contribute to the economic and cultural development of the country.

Czech language is used only by a small number of people in Europe and the rest of the world, and it is therefore important that the Czech state is interested and promotes development of pilot structures for children of an early age, not only for learning Czech in later age.

This is exactly what we are now striving for.

 

 

Paris 26 July 2007                              

MUDr. Lucie Slavíková-Boucher, Association Chair