This second suggested school blog post/communication with parents is intended to alert parents to the fact that they should not expect much output based instruction in your language class this year:
Listening and Reading Are the Key Early Skills:
It takes a lot of listening to a language to be able to speak it, and a lot of reading to be able to write it, so it is best if your child focus mainly this year on the language input skills of listening to and reading French before venturing into working on the more sophisticated output skills of speaking and writing.
Authentic Language Output (Speech and Writing) Emerge Naturally Over Time and Cannot Be Forced:
Your child must never be made to feel as if “they can’t do it” (speak and write) until they have heard and read French a lot first. It is my job to provide that listening and reading input to your child in ways that make them experience confidence in French from the beginning. My belief is that if your child enjoys the class, and doesn’t feel pressured by large amounts of homework and big tests, your child will learn much more than if they feel nervous about it.
Instructional Minutes Cannot Be Wasted:
I look forward to perhaps playing a part in developing in your child a life-long interest in French. It takes thousands of hours of contact (mainly in the form of input as described above) to gain output mastery of a language. In one middle school year, even if your child is hearing and reading the language every single minute in class, we still can only get about 125 hours of practice in per year, far less that what is sufficient to result in real authentic gains in speaking and writing.
The Overarching Objective of the French Class:
The goal of French Class in the AES Middle School is that your child feel happy each day when they leave class. We want them to experience a growing feeling each day that they are good at French, that they can do it, and that they want to learn more.
Contact Information and Invitation:
My room number in the AES Middle School is 206, my phone in that room is   and you can also reach me on my cell phone at 783-870-0427. Please feel free to drop by to observe your child’s class, and that invitation also includes a sincere wish that you drop in on any class during the day to learn some French yourself! (If that is not the sincere wish of your child, please feel free to drop in on any other class. There are seats near the door where visitors can slip in and out of class without really being noticed by the students.)
I will post more relevant information in these pages, as the school year gets going, about what we are doing in class, exactly what is expected from your child, homework and test information, etc.
To restate – the overarching goal of the instruction I will offer your child in French this year is that your child feel good about him or herself as a learner of French and that they perhaps maybe even make it a lifelong passion some day.since so much more time is required for mastery than we have available to us in our school setting.
To reach those goals, I would ask you to encourage your child to be fully present in class and ready to learn, and ready to follow my classroom rules, which I will post here as well. We will talk about what learning habits are necessary for your child to succeed in French at AES. If they just follow those rules in class and attend to the other requirements of the course, then I will take care of everything else, since that is my job as the teacher!
Let’s make 2015-2016 a great year at AES!