La lettre en anglais – ELSE – Éducation en langues secondes et étrangères
This letter is addressed to the parents of children in lockdown
Here we are at home with our family.
Never have we been with our children so often and over such a long period of time.
It’s the opportunity to talk to them, to talk to them more often than we usually might.
It’s the opportunity to listen to them, to listen to them for longer, and more than usual.
It’s the opportunity to get to know them better
Talking with our children is essential to get through this crisis together: to reassure each other, to support one another and to say important to things to each other.
Talking with our children to help them with their schoolwork.
Talking about their school and their work, talking about their fears and their successes, will help them make progress, during this crisis and once they go back to school too!
Reviewing schoolwork is a good moment to talk to one another.
Children can always explain to their parents what they have understood, what they’ve not understood, what is easy and what is difficult.
You can contact an Aunt, an Uncle, a friend, a neighbour to better understand.
You can do that together, even if you think you are not able to do it.
Teachers send schoolwork that children are capable of doing.
Teachers also send schoolwork that is more difficult and that children can try to do by taking the time to understand it, with you, with your questions and by talking about it together.
Sometimes it is too difficult: it doesn’t matter, because they will go over it again later, in school.
Ask your children what they have understood, even if they tell you they didn’t understand a thing.
Tell them what you think, try to understand it together.
You are not looking for performance or perfection, but rather thinking things over together.
For parents who speak a language which is different from the school language
Speaking is « saying and listening », it’s exchanging, sharing, in the language or languages you’re used to and are most familiar with.
All languages are beautiful, useful and valuable to talk to your child.
All languages are valid, useful, to ask, to say, to console, to get angry, to tell and to retell stories, to explain, to laugh together or just to talk the time away.
Use the appropriate language (or languages) for you: the easiest, the most useful, the most natural, the most efficient to converse with your child.
And let your child select the language or languages that they want to use; what is most important is to communicate.
The group: « diversity, together » (parents, teachers, trainers, researchers, students)
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