How to follow your child's school's progress in a bilingual setting?
Bilingual schooling is an important investment for the whole family. Beyond the financial cost, both the parents' and the child's investment is more important than for a traditional schooling.
Studying in both languages often involves having two teachers whose methods may be slightly different, which means greater flexibility for parents and students. In particular, the content and amount of homework may be different, as the pedagogical approaches of the French and Anglo-Saxon systems are not always the same.
L'école Bilingue Chardin has implemented homework monitoring tools that allow students and their families to organize and plan their workload, but the amount of homework is still higher than in a traditional school.
An important point is also the cultural openness and in particular the literature. A successful school education requires the reading of a large number of classics and in the case of bilingual schooling, the number of books to be read per year is much more important. Here again, it is necessary for students to plan their reading schedule from the beginning of the year to leave time for pleasure reading. The role of the parents and their cultural capital is therefore decisive so that bilingualism is also based on the understanding of the two civilizations.
Seeing movies in both languages and getting used to subtitles very quickly is also recommended.
The choice of a bilingual schooling involves a more important follow-up for the parents but the success and the blooming of the children will be the reward.
