Teaching my daughter Martina from her fourth year and monitoring her linguistic, cognitive and social and emotional development, I have designed a method for early learning of French as a foreign language, which I have then applied to early learning of English and German. Tope-là, Tina ! / Give me five, Tina! / Gib mir fünf, Tina! is a method for early learning of French, English and/or German as a foreign language.

This is a method of teaching/learning French, English and German as a foreign language by playing, singing, rhythmic movement and a whole series of different activities the variety of which serves to keep the child’s attention: from following short stories from the child’s everyday life, simple conversations, graphomotor exercises, drawing, colouring, social games to creating paper objects, making jewellery, shaping Play-Doh or simple culinary tasks.

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The first part titled Je joue, je chante et j’apprends le français / I play, I sing and I learn English / Ich spiele, ich singe und ich lerne Deutsch is intended for children of medium and older preschool age (4-6 years of age).

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Thematically and conceptually, the first part of the method Tope-là, Tina ! / Give me five, Tina! / Gib mir fünf, Tina! follows and encourages linguistic, cognitive and social and emotional development in a child of 4 to 6 years of age. It is structured in 10 thematic units matching the main areas of the child’s interest (from getting to know other children, getting dressed and eating to various hobbies, going to the doctor or bedtime stories). Each of the 10 thematic units consists of 10 modules, i.e. 4 linguistic, 4 musical and 2 creative modules, which can be combined in different ways (transversally, regardless of belonging to a certain thematic unit) within the framework of creative (multisensory) and linguistic and musical workshops of different duration (30, 45, 60, 90 or 120 minutes), i.e. linguistic courses of different length and intensity (1-5 months) and different character (monolingual or multilingual).

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The first part of the Tope-là, Tina ! / Give me five, Tina! / Gib mir fünf, Tina! method is also adjusted to the children of 4 to 6 years of age by genre. From the discourse genres, it combines the elements of picture books/stories with melodically and rhythmically simple and carefully selected children’s songs and nursery rhymes through the performance of which the child already in early age spontaneously acquires the phonetic wealth and prosodic features of French, English and/or German language. The basic vocabulary and simple conversational sequences and grammar structures are acquired spontaneously through play and performance of various activities, i.e. through active following of relevant instructions in French, English or German. When selecting the creative activities and social games, we were guided by the multisensory approach, providing the child with the possibility of experiencing the foreign language with all its senses.

 

With the thematic, conceptual and genre adaptation to the age of the children, the specificity of this method consists also in connecting the acquisition of French, English and/or German as a foreign language with the development of musicality in a child, whereby the music is a means for an easier acquisition of a language, while the learning of a language through singing and rhythmic movement is a way of developing the child’s musicality.