Charlotte Mason’s school programs had students studying three languages, besides English and Latin, by the time they graduated. Why was the study of Foreign Language so important to her? We’ll explore that idea and lay out her method for teaching languages in today’s podcast episode.

Listen Now:

Charlotte Mason, Volume 6 (Amazon) (Living Book Press – use code DELECTABLE for 10% off!)

ADE Vol 6, Chapt 10 Reading List

TalkBox.mom (a variety of languages)

theULAT.com (French, Spanish; Italian and German coming)

aliceayel.com (French)

Academia Late y Llama (Spanish)

*You can also search on YouTube for “Comprehensible Input [target language of your choice]”

ADE on YouTube

Emily
Welcome to A Delectable Education, the podcast that spreads the feast of the Charlotte Mason Method. I’m Emily Kiser and I’m here with…

Nicole
…Nicole Williams…

Liz
…and Liz Cottrill. 

Bonjour!

Emily
Bonjour. You want to say it in German? 

Nicole
No. Hahaha.

Liz
Hola! 

Emily
There is no subject included in the feast of a Charlotte Mason education for simply a pragmatic purpose. Instead, Charlotte Mason recognized that knowledge itself is delightful. And we never can tell what ideas are going to be the key that our child needs to open the door to the rest of their life. The study of Foreign Language may just be one key.

Though it can be very useful to learn a second language or a third in order to communicate with other people of another nationality or ethnicity, a way to love our neighbor even, Charlotte Mason believed, learning another language gives us much more. By learning another tongue, we learn to see the world from a different perspective. We begin to think differently and learn that other peoples are as we are with a difference. All language is metaphor, and to learn the metaphors of another tongue can be a revelation to us. 

So Nicole, would you lay out the scope and sequence of how in the world we’re supposed to add multiple languages to our vocabulary? 

Nicole
Yes. Well, partly I can tell you that. I can just tell you what was done.

Emily
Okay. 

Nicole
So we see Charlotte Mason’s programs, through the assigned work that she gave, that Foreign Language was a steady stream of education, begun very early, even before school lessons began.

Emily
Right.

Nicole
And then just strengthened over time until students could really use that language. So in Form 1, so grades one through three, the Foreign Language lessons are primarily oral at that point.

As we talked about in a previous episode, at this point, it’s the same as learning our own language that students are hearing. 

Emily
Yeah. 

Nicole
And maybe not even being able to reply yet; they’re just hearing and trying to understand.

So her emphasis was that French would be the first one, and that it would be acquired as living speech, not as grammar. Training the ear to hear the new sounds and slowly the lips to be able to form them. She even said that the children shouldn’t see the words, so we’re really learning just an oral language at this time. 

I just have to emphasize that we really have to do it though. We’re not expecting a lot to come back, but we are setting a lot of groundwork at this early stage. 

Emily
Just think how much input your child, toddlers, have to have from infancy through to toddlerhood of hearing before they’re able to repeat the sounds.

Nicole
Absolutely. And we can use things like nature study, learning words there, or songs. So there’s a lot of ways that we can, just like we would again with just learning English, right? 

Liz
And they say that even in English to an English speaker, if you hear a new word, you have to hear it 15 times before you’ll have the courage to say it. So I think that gives us some balance about it with our kids.

Nicole
Right. So in Form 2, that’s where it does start to get more structured at this point. Charlotte Mason still prioritizes language as speech first, but now students begin to narrate short passages in French after the teacher has read them to them, describe pictures in French, and move towards reading an easy French book. 

And then also just important to note here that by the age of 12, Charlotte Mason said children should have some power of understanding spoken French, be able to speak a little, and read an easy French book without a dictionary. So this is really a bridge, I think in their language learning.

Because by Form 3, now we’re really getting into it. Charlotte Mason said they should be learning French still, but then she says we can add German, or better, Italian…or maybe both. But I would say just to remember that at this point, if they’ve already got two languages, English and French, settled, they are more equipped to learn more languages at this point. 

Emily
Everyone tells us the more you learn, the easier it becomes.

Nicole
Yeah. 

Liz
And it is just the easy part, like they started way back in first grade. They’re learning simple things. It’s not like they’re joining in at the level that they’re at in their French. 

Nicole
No.

Emily
Or their first language, yeah. 

Nicole
Yeah. But they are at this point reading and then narrating longer French stories. 

Emily
Yeah.

Nicole
And they’re really beginning, I think, to maybe think in French at this point and take in ideas and express ideas. It’s not just vocabulary at this point, right? 

Emily
Yeah. 

Nicole
Then in Form 4, which is ninth grade, Charlotte Mason describes more use of advanced books and she noted that when possible, that the French and German books illustrate the history being studied, so the time period, but in their language. 

Emily
So books that were written during the time period that they’re studying. 

Nicole
Yes. 

Emily
In history.

Nicole
Yes, and greater caliber of works at this point also.

And then Forms 5 and 6, so grade 10, 11, and 12, she describes just really higher level outcomes like narrating substantial readings in French. She even gives an example of a teacher standing and reading a whole long history account, I think it was extended, not short, and then the students just picking up immediately and narrating all the way through that. 

Emily
In French. 

Nicole
In French, yeah. And then she also talked about writing a resume, which Liz tells me is a summary, in French, of plays like, and you have to read them for me…

Emily
“Le Misanthrope” or “L’Avare.” 

Nicole
Yeah. So whatever that means, but this was an interesting one too – translating modern verse into French. So that was interesting. We see that, translating back and forth and things. So really, just like our own native tongue, it’s really the same exact progression. It’s just set back a little bit because our children are learning English from birth. And maybe you have some French, and you can start that from birth too. Or you have another language that you’re starting from birth.

Emily
Exactly. 

Nicole
But if not, then starting at least in first grade or maybe just before with nature study and stuff, and that same progression we see in English, the same grammar lessons, things like that, are going to apply. 

Emily
Mm-hmm. So let’s talk about the specific lessons in Form 1, again, grades one through three. These are four 10-minute lessons that they cover vocabulary from pictures. They’re not seeing any words written in the target language. They’re learning short stories or even Charlotte Mason talks about the Gouin method, where you’re basically learning the steps of an action and learning how to say whole sentences that way. So three times, or four times a week, excuse me, and then another lesson, so really every day, a short 10-minute singing lesson in their target language. So really, 10 minutes every day for French or whatever target language you’re using.

In Form 2, that increases to 20-minute lessons, but it’s only three times a week. So it’s really the same amount of time, right? Did I do that math right? No, it’s a little bit longer. 

Liz
Little bit. 

Emily
A little, 10 extra minutes longer.

But then by Forms 3 and 4, they have three 30-minute lessons, which you just get a lot more when you can do a longer lesson than the short one. 

Nicole
Yeah. 

Emily
But then they start their other language, and they have two 20 to 30-minute lessons for that. And so they’re starting out with longer lessons in their second language. When you start your second target language besides your first that you’ve been working on since Form 1, there’s no injunction that they would not be seeing the words written. And I think that that is generally agreed upon–

Liz
They’re older.

Emily
–because they have firmly learned how to read in their first language, their mother tongue. Then they’ve been reading their second one that they are much more familiar with, and so now when they’re starting their third language…yeah fourth if you include Latin, they are able to do that without confusing the reading. 

Nicole
I also wonder, because she talks about the pronunciation being hijacked by the English language, but if German was your next language, it’s much easier to sound out the German than it would be the French. So maybe that’s also part of it. 

Emily
And then in the highest forms, Forms 5 and 6, 10th, 11th, and 12th grade or years, still three 30-minute lessons for their first foreign language, two 40-minute lessons for their second, and possibly third. So, there is so much time on the timetable for these. 

As far as individual lessons go, the lessons are going to vary. This is a living speech. Think about how you learned English. Did you sit down with your baby and start working through systematically? It’s going to be much more variable.

Charlotte Mason did have a target in this earliest form, Form 1, that they would learn six new words per lesson, but they would also hear them in sentences. So we present vocabulary with gestures. We use pictures to convey meaning without having to translate and say what it is in our native tongue, right? And then to hear it spoken in whole sentences. So they are starting to get that grammar and syntax. 

Students repeat, just as young children learning to talk will say things back, and we might say, “Oh, no, it’s like this,” and you just repeat it again.

Liz
Until they get it right.

Emily
And we’re not making a big deal of it. They’re just experimenting and trying to form their tongues and their lips and developing their palate to pronounce these different sounds. They hear short stories. They begin to narrate them, even in the very first year. It’s just much, much more simple than what they will eventually get to, and they have lots of auditory input to accommodate their ears to hearing the language. 

And as they start to hear and understand, it’s perfectly fine for them to narrate in English what they’re understanding, right? We don’t have to have them immediately narrate to French. It’s showing us what they understand. 

As they move into Form 2, they begin to read their target language, and then narration is still a key component, even if they’re just looking at a picture. The resources that we know that Charlotte Mason assigned and used, it was much set like that. There would be a picture with a story, and then the child would narrate. But it was basically repeating the sentences that they heard, and so in that way, they’re starting to get that. 

They are also taught to translate, or expected to translate from the target language into English. And then, as you said, Nicole, they would also take English and translate it into French.

And Charlotte Mason said that first step, they would translate from the target, let’s just say French for simplicity’s sake. They would translate French into English, and then they would reread the French, and then they would narrate in French. So that’s kind of the next step up that they get. They continue to progress in their study of grammar and composition in the target language, just as we have done in English. 

And she has several example lessons in Volume Three, appendix five, that are higher level French, German, and Italian lessons back there. So if you want to see the format for that, that is where I would direct you. 

Our lesson objectives for Foreign Language is to increase their powers of understanding and speaking the language very simply. So we’re just helping them make slow and steady progress, just like in all our other lessons. 

The teacher prep for this subject is really going to depend on the resources that you use, and also how familiar you are with the language. Some of us don’t know one, and so we’re going to have to rely on other resources. Thankfully, in our technological age, we have a lot more at our fingertips to use, and so that is just going to vary. But maybe you need to plan out sentences for the vocabulary words that you’re planning to use, or find pictures that help describe them, or passages and stories, et cetera. 

There are so many resources that we could list that use what is known in the language acquisition community as comprehensible language input. What is it? 

Liz
Comprehensible Input Instruction.

Emily
Comprehensible Input Instruction, which is really essentially the same method that Charlotte Mason was advocating. And we have compiled a list of those that just vary depending on the language you’re studying, and we will include those in the show notes. 

Liz
Well, this is sometimes one of the most intimidating subjects, and I have moms all the time, “Well, I don’t know any language at all. I have no idea what I’m doing.” Well, I would just encourage you that when you start a Charlotte Mason education, you dive into a lot of things you’ve never done before, don’t you? 

And then another question is commonly, “Which one do I choose?” 

Emily
Yes. 

Liz
And I always say, “Don’t choose the one you want, choose the one you know or have had at least a tiny bit of experience.” If you took one year of Spanish in high school, and you don’t even think you did very well in it, you’re still farther ahead to just go on into that. 

Emily
Or what you have recently, like maybe you have an in-law or a family member that speaks another language that– 

Liz
I mean, the most ideal thing for all of us would be to have a tutor. And you can pray for one of those to come along in your life. You can ask around at church, friends, the local library. There’s lots of ways we can find other native speakers. But if that doesn’t happen, like Emily said, you’re going to have to study it yourself and stay a step ahead of your children. 

Another consideration, well, I guess I would just encourage you, because I have a lot of moms that tell me, “I had a couple years. I remember nothing.” Well, when Emily used to teach my youngest two French, because she knew French, and they loved it, and it’s really amusing to me because as adults, they still know all the things she taught them. But she got married and left me, and I said to the boys, “I think we’ll switch to Spanish because I know Spanish better.” Because I had three years of high school French, but had a different teacher every year, and none of them were very strong teachers. And that’s why I switched to Spanish in college. And that went much better, and it was more recent. It had been 45 years since I had had French, and at first, I did sometimes speak French, Frenish, as my boys said. But the French came back. I was astounded. 

Emily
Did you teach Spanish or the French? 

Emily
I did French with them–

Emily
Oh, okay.

Liz
–because that’s what they wanted to continue. I wanted them to switch, but they didn’t want to.

Emily
Okay. 

Liz
So I just want to encourage you that even if it’s been a really long time, it will come back to you. Remember what we said about language acquisition. The more you hear something…so start listening to Spanish. Our libraries online are full of Spanish resources. Listen to the Bible, some chapter you know yourself, in Spanish over and over again. Listen to a whole book. Or what I find really helpful is listening to Spanish, or whatever language it might be, newscasts…because they speak very slowly and clearly, and after a while you’re like, “Oh, they’re talking about our president,” and all these sort of things. So, getting it into your own ear, and just do the lessons with your children. Work as hard as they do at learning the words. 

And honestly, this is not something you can just turn in for those 10 minutes. That’s the formal part, but you’re going to have to be speaking that language with them all day, as often as you can possibly work it in. Don’t you think that helps a lot? 

Emily
That’s why we really do like the talkbox.mom boxes, because they have words and phrases that we use all the time in our homes, and none of my children will say, “Please pass the butter.” They always say, “Passe le beurre, s’il te plait.” And just by replacing those things that we say all of the time. And so we often do those around dinner as a whole family, when my husband joins in. 

Liz
And honestly, in this day and age, Emily alluded to this, with Google, any of the search engines, and all the AI we have, you can type in, “I want the translation of these English sentences.” And I think Google Translate on your phones has improved tremendously.

Emily
It has improved.

Liz
I will just say that for North American, especially in the US, we have a huge Spanish population, and you’re going to encounter that a lot, and it is an easier language, so if you have no experience, that might be a good place to do. You don’t have to start with French just because Charlotte Mason did.

Emily
Maybe we should talk about why she did French. 

Liz
Well, I was just going to encourage them. However, if you would like to dive into French, I think having to do it for school, because it is a little more challenging than Spanish, that would be good. Because like we’ve said, every language you pick up comes easier, and Spanish is much easier. So they’re going to naturally encounter it more, and they would acquire a little bit of Spanish, just living.

Emily
It used to be that all English speakers also, educated English speakers, all…

Liz
They always learned French.

Emily
Yeah. Our language is very amalgamated by French.

Liz
Right. I think 60% of our words…

Emily
Because the Normans came over…yeah. And this is why we have words like sheep for the animal and mutton for the meat, because the nobles spoke French, and mouton is the word for sheep in French. We just don’t know how– 

Liz
And you all know restaurant.

Emily
Yes, and theater, and all kinds of things. But when we read classic literature, even when written in English, even reading Charlotte Mason’s volumes, there’s a whole ton of French, just thrown in there untranslated…because they were educated. So for her, that was the natural first language to do. But– 

Liz
And it was their closest neighbor, too.

Emily
Yeah. But you might…well, they didn’t learn Celtic or Gaelic, which were actual distinct languages.

Liz
True, true. But if you have a grandmother who’s Norwegian, and is in your life, or Portuguese…

Emily
Or you have a strong different cultural heritage.

Liz
Yes! Go for it. Yeah. 

Emily
But as you were saying, the one that you’re going to be the most successful is the one that you can speak, even if it’s just a little. 

Liz
Yeah. Mm-hmm. 

Emily
Do you have any other?

Liz
I don’t think so. 

Emily
Okay. Thanks for tuning in today. We have links in the show notes for many resources for teaching Foreign Language in accordance with Charlotte Mason’s methods. We hope you’ll join us next week when we finish our look at language lessons by turning to the ancient tongue, Latin, as we continue to spread the feast of the Charlotte Mason method.