Need help urgently!!!Question on French as 2nd language in Vibgyor, Marathahalli

brave · Post by **brave** » Mon May 30, 2011 7:38 am

:confused:

All,
My son will be going to 6th grade at Vibgyor. This is a new admission, we recently moved to Bangalore. I was told last week that they do not offer French as 2nd language. At the time of admission they gave us the option of Hindi or French. I am planning to go and talk to the principle this week regarding this. I would like to know if anybody (especially new admission) is taking French this year at Vibgyor.

brave · Post by **brave** » Sat Jun 04, 2011 12:16 pm

Finally I met with the coordinator last week. I was told that they do offer French. We are still debating between French and Hindi. Not sure which one to opt.
So far our exerience with Vibgyor is extremely good.

back2desh · Post by **back2desh** » Sat Jun 04, 2011 8:45 pm

We moved last year to Bangalore from US, our kids study in Samhita Academy, my son is in 5th grade now and from this year they added French as a third language, Hindi is the second language. So my son is learning both Hindi and French. You could give it a shot in this school.

brave;392377Finally I met with the coordinator last week. I was told that they do offer French. We are still debating between French and Hindi. Not sure which one to opt.
So far our exerience with Vibgyor is extremely good.

Old-Spice2 · Post by **Old-Spice2** » Sun Jun 05, 2011 2:32 am

back2desh;392411We moved last year to Bangalore from US, our kids study in Samhita Academy, my son is in 5th grade now and from this year they added French as a third language, Hindi is the second language. So my son is learning both Hindi and French. You could give it a shot in this school.

Why is this fascination with French with NRIs? You have to live in France or Quebec to practice French. I enrolled my kid for Kannada(third language) though it is not our mother tongue. If you plan to live in BLR it is better to learn the local language. Our elder kid learnt French and it is a waste of time - without practice it is no use learning a foreign language.

Desi · Post by **Desi** » Mon Jun 06, 2011 2:01 am

OP,

Do you know French? What language have you found the need for greater? Hindi or French?

I find that perhaps for a very short duration in my life, the knowledge of French would have been helpful when I was travelling. Other than that, I have found that lack of knowledge of Hindi would have been a tremendous handicap, much more than the handicap, if any, from lack of knowledge of French.

To me, learning French is about as useful as learning the Armenian or Hungarian.

Comprenez-vous ce que je dis (do you understand what I am saying)

layman · Post by **layman** » Mon Jun 06, 2011 2:54 am

Actually, none of these languages be it Hindi, or Kannada or Tamil is any useful. I am talking about the language being taught in high school, not the spoken language. How many of you use Hindi or Kannada high school grammar? Are we talking shayaris of Tulsidas and dissecting it part by part for dailylife communication? I did not study Hindi in school but I had no problem living in North India. I could speak Hindi. Spoken language is different from the grilling one has to go through studying language as a subject. French is taken by students to ace the 2nd language. The language content is supposed to be easy in French subject compared to Hindi or any other language. Just wanted to give a different perspective. Other than that it is individual choice.

OP, if your kid has moved from abroad and starting 6th grade, French will be easier for him than any Indian language. Starting Hindi at 6th grade and moving fast enough to dissect a poem in a few yrs on par with students that have already studied the language for 5 more yrs is hard on the R2I student. On the other hand, French provides a level playing field. Besides, the French teachers go easy on the students because it is not their mother tongue as well.

PS: I am not for or against any language. My post is to enable a successful R2I for a parent with middle school level kid.

M V · Post by **M V** » Mon Jun 06, 2011 3:48 am

Grading of exam answer papers and awarding of marks in languages like French and Sanskrit is often more generous than that of of Hindi papers. So, French would be a better choice between Hindi and French. Of course, parent could be the kind who doesn't care about marks & grades, and only wants child to explore, enjoy and learn... then it is a different story. :)

Mandarin would perhaps be the bestest choice. :)

okonomi · Post by **okonomi** » Mon Jun 06, 2011 4:17 am

It is a pity that Spanish is not one of the languages in the syllabus. (or is it ?) While that one-child policy is going to come back and bite the chinese in the "future", the latinos are increasing in numbers. May be I'd been following J-Lo' too much ?
Many (including certain Tamil Loving members of the forum) had said that French is the way to go to get the overall grades up. Learn Hindi or whatever on your own....watching just too many bollywood flicks help in getting the required vocabulary for grownup-hood.

brave · Post by **brave** » Mon Jun 06, 2011 11:55 am

All,
I do not have any preference for any particular language. I want to make sure my kids don't get overwhelmed with languages, especially my son who will be going to 6th grade this year and was not exposed to neither Hindi nor French until now. I talked to several parents and school authorities and learnt that both are equally difficult in their own way.
· Hindi
o Kids start Hindi as 2nd language from 1st grade itself and my son has to learn 5 years of Hindi in a short time.
o It is easy to find a tutor in Hindi.
o Tutor is not expensive.
o Can learn the language easily by watching movies and from friends.
o Living in India, he will learn to speak Hindi anyway. By taking Hindi as 2nd language, he will lose the opportunity to learn one more language.
· French
o Kids don?t start French until 3rd grade (or 4th grade). My son has to catch up with 3 years of French.
o Very difficult to find a tutor (or a good tutor).
o Tutor is expensive.
o Once in college, he will forget it pretty quickly since he does not use it.-> This is the input I got from my colleagues who took French in school.

back2desh · Post by **back2desh** » Mon Jun 06, 2011 1:35 pm

There is no fascination Old-Spice2, I studied Hindi thru-ought 12th grade, after that never ever touched or read a single Hindi book, moved down south to do my engineering and since then it's only the english language that I have used in 20+ years. Already my son is struggling with Hindi and I did not want him to struggle more with Kannada so I have enrolled him for French as it will be easier for him to learn and how knows it may be of some use to him as not many prefer to learn foreign language.

Old-Spice2;392449Why is this fascination with French with NRIs? You have to live in France or Quebec to practice French. I enrolled my kid for Kannada(third language) though it is not our mother tongue. If you plan to live in BLR it is better to learn the local language. Our elder kid learnt French and it is a waste of time - without practice it is no use learning a foreign language.