On Tue, 07 Feb 2006 14:57:55 +0000
Sacha wrote:

On 7/2/06 14:24, in article , "Nick
Maclaren" wrote:

snip

In particular, if you have not learnt to hear certain sounds by
the age of 5 or so, you probably never will - even if you have
an early hearing problem that is later corrected.

I don't know if this is correct but I was told some years ago that the
Lycée International won't accept anyone who did not start to learn French by
the age of four. This was told me by someone who had been through that
system and he said that this was because after that age it is 'impossible'
to learn to pronounce French as the French themselves speak it.

Gaah! Trying desperately to stay out of this OT stuff, this time!

I'm not sure which lycée you're referring to, Sacha, but that is
certainly not true at any of the Lycées Internationals that I've
come across. My kids were at the Lycée Laperouse in San Francisco,
which is one of the ecoles homologuées in the network, and they certainly
would except non-French speakers up to sixieme; after that French
was required but I never heard of a beginning age requirement.
We have some Greek/Spanish friends whos kids were in the
Lycée International in Palma, they entered later, and it seemed
to be a very cosmopolitan student body.

This said, I don't doubt that at least to some extent each school
can set it's own rules, maybe your acquaintance's school was
particular in this respect.

The Lycée system is great because if you move a lot, your
kids can pick up in a new city basically on the next page of
the same textbook. They really do all march in lock-step.
And as they are about 40% in English, they turn out
perfectly bi-lingual teenagers, bless 'em.

Now, off to prepare some of those strange concoctions
for dinner! (OK, actually I'll probably take some of
last years broccoli out of the freezer. There, back on
topic.)

-E
--
Emery Davis
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