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My kids are 3 and 6, and they were born in France. I'm American and my husband is French. We have been practicing OPOL/OPAL (one parent, one language), so my husband speaks to them only in French, and I speak only in English. We live in France and my daughter goes to a French school. I read to her, we do English school workbooks together, and all other activities with me are only in English. When we go back to the US to visit, I observe my daughter's English skills in comparison to her friends. I even privately ask my friends and family to give me feedback, in which they tell me she sounds like any other American kid. Even other people (cashiers, etc.) are surprised to find out that she's from France. I know what it feels like to need that extra reassurance that your child is ok!
I assume your spouse speaks English as well? If that's the case, then your son really shouldn't have any problems with English. Also, I believe they offer English courses in French schools. We are moving to Montreal in July, and when my daughter starts 1st grade in August, she'll have 1 hour of English a week. At age 9, your son should also have some English in school. Maybe not a lot, but every little bit counts!
As Sarah_Anne said, living in a predominately Anglophone area will help. They also have social groups for Anglo families.
Hi everyone, thanks so much for your excellent replies.
Aliss, I'm sure your children will learn French like native speakers and they have the advantage that you can help them with their English at home. I'm so pleased my son will be learning French fluently as I love the language.
My husband speaks fluent French (he learned it when living in Paris about 10 year sago) hence our decision to move to Quebec. My father-in-law speaks and writes French and has translated several French engineering books. He learnt French in Switzerland as an engineering student in the 1950's !
I agree with Aliss and disagree with Acajack regarding learning English though !! It's true that French is a complicated language (and one of the most beautiful in my opinion but I strongly disagree that English is much easier. Elementary English may be easier, but not advanced English.
In my experience, as a former business lawyer and former teacher of English ( I taught advanced Business and Legal English at university level) who used to meet many French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Chinese, Russian, Arabic, etc. speakers, English is an incredibly difficult language to master at ADVANCED levels. My students were mostly doctors, lawyers, engineers, dentists, business people, etc. i.e. professionals who were all very educated in their own native tongue.
It is mainly because English grammar, vocabulary and spelling are highly irregular causing great difficulties to those trying to get from intermediate to advanced levels of English.
Professional level English, just like advanced English Literature, is phenomenally complex. I have yet to meet an adult who learned English later in life (say after the age of 18) who does not make mistakes, the most common ones among all nationalities being: not adding "s" to third person verbs, prepositions, a/an/the (either using too many articles or using them incorrectly), etc. French and other Latin language speakers have huge difficulties with all of these grammatical issues.
The Dutch, Germans and Scandinavians, have fewer difficulties due to the close link between English and their own language, so in my experience they get to advanced levels of English much quicker than Latin language speakers.
Even the highly educated lawyers and business professionals I have met found the vastness of English vocabulary (according to the Oxford Dictionary there are around 700,000 English words in current use !!) really challenging. English phrasal verbs (for which we have an entire dictionary) and collocations are particularly nasty! No other language in the world has as many phrasal verb combinations as English, adding to the 1000's of English words that non-native speakers have to master. A native speaker of English never has to think about which phrasal verbs or prepositions to use, but to a non-native these are an absolute nightmare no matter how long they have been learning English !!!!!
Thanks for yet another extremely relevant post. It's wonderful to hear from other families in the same situation. It's mainly to reassure me, you are right : )
Yes, my husband is the only fluent French speaker at the moment. He learnt his French working in companies in Paris about 10 years ago. I did French at school, but have not used it since so most of it is gone : (
Our son shows a lot of language ability. He will be 9 in June, but he is already reading English novels written for teenagers, so I'm not too worried about his English reading ability right now. I will continue to supplement his English in Montreal with lots of English reading and writing at home.
Do native English speakers in Quebec's French schools receive English sessions appropriate to native speakers, or are they mixed in with children who may not speak English as well as them ?
Just wondering, because Montreal is very cosmopolitan, so their schools must have a vast numbers of children who have different native languages, some will be native speakers of English and others will be beginners.
How do they teach English to mixed ability classes?
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No I think Montreal is at least a somewhat bilingual environment, and these days you have not only TV and movies but the internet, and of course you at home, so I doubt his English will suffer as a result.
Thanks for yet another extremely relevant post. It's wonderful to hear from other families in the same situation. It's mainly to reassure me, you are right : )
Yes, my husband is the only fluent French speaker at the moment. He learnt his French working in companies in Paris about 10 years ago. I did French at school, but have not used it since so most of it is gone : (
Our son shows a lot of language ability. He will be 9 in June, but he is already reading English novels written for teenagers, so I'm not too worried about his English reading ability right now. I will continue to supplement his English in Montreal with lots of English reading and writing at home.
Do native English speakers in Quebec's French schools receive English sessions appropriate to native speakers, or are they mixed in with children who may not speak English as well as them ?
Just wondering, because Montreal is very cosmopolitan, so their schools must have a vast numbers of children who have different native languages, some will be native speakers of English and others will be beginners.
How do they teach English to mixed ability classes?
Generally I think they will go with the overall level of the class. Depending on the area where you are, the level may be higher or lower but generally in most areas of Montreal there won't be that many kids in the class that are native speakers of English (though some may have some knowledge) as the local native "anglo" kids will go to the "English" schools for the most part, and not the "French" schools.
It is entirely possible and even likely that your child will end up with consistent 100% marks in English throughout his schooling.
Hi everyone, thanks so much for your excellent replies.
Aliss, I'm sure your children will learn French like native speakers and they have the advantage that you can help them with their English at home. I'm so pleased my son will be learning French fluently as I love the language.
My husband speaks fluent French (he learned it when living in Paris about 10 year sago) hence our decision to move to Quebec. My father-in-law speaks and writes French and has translated several French engineering books. He learnt French in Switzerland as an engineering student in the 1950's !
I agree with Aliss and disagree with Acajack regarding learning English though !! It's true that French is a complicated language (and one of the most beautiful in my opinion but I strongly disagree that English is much easier. Elementary English may be easier, but not advanced English.
In my experience, as a former business lawyer and former teacher of English ( I taught advanced Business and Legal English at university level) who used to meet many French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Chinese, Russian, Arabic, etc. speakers, English is an incredibly difficult language to master at ADVANCED levels. My students were mostly doctors, lawyers, engineers, dentists, business people, etc. i.e. professionals who were all very educated in their own native tongue.
It is mainly because English grammar, vocabulary and spelling are highly irregular causing great difficulties to those trying to get from intermediate to advanced levels of English.
Professional level English, just like advanced English Literature, is phenomenally complex. I have yet to meet an adult who learned English later in life (say after the age of 18) who does not make mistakes, the most common ones among all nationalities being: not adding "s" to third person verbs, prepositions, a/an/the (either using too many articles or using them incorrectly), etc. French and other Latin language speakers have huge difficulties with all of these grammatical issues.
The Dutch, Germans and Scandinavians, have fewer difficulties due to the close link between English and their own language, so in my experience they get to advanced levels of English much quicker than Latin language speakers.
Even the highly educated lawyers and business professionals I have met found the vastness of English vocabulary (according to the Oxford Dictionary there are around 700,000 English words in current use !!) really challenging. English phrasal verbs (for which we have an entire dictionary) and collocations are particularly nasty! No other language in the world has as many phrasal verb combinations as English, adding to the 1000's of English words that non-native speakers have to master. A native speaker of English never has to think about which phrasal verbs or prepositions to use, but to a non-native these are an absolute nightmare no matter how long they have been learning English !!!!!
And yet I know people in many professional fields that have worked or work in places where the language is English and yet only possess a basic mastery of the language. A huge number of IT professionals in the western world are from Asia and only know very basic English.
Unless you are doing language-based work like law or something like that, reasonably fluent English is fine for most careers. It's a very user-friendly language.
I am a native French speaker. I learned English when I was 4 or 5 probably - I don't actually remember having people speaking English around me and not understanding what they were saying.
I base my view on the easiness of English based on what I have observed (people trying to learn it vs. people trying to learn French), as well as personal experience.
I have had long periods in my life where I almost never spoke French, and long periods where I never spoke English. During those periods when I didn't speak French my French lapsed rather badly. This never happened with my English - it always bounced back quite fluently and quickly.
And this in spite of the fact that French was the first language I learned and was our only home language during all of my childhood.
That's interesting, but I guess everyone's case might be slightly different. I've often heard that English is one of the more difficult languages to learn since rules are constantly broken. For example silent letters. It's my understanding in French the rules don't have exceptions ( examples if I'm wrong, thx ) whereas in English "ould" can be said different ways. Would, could, and mould, let alone words pronounced the same way with different meanings and spellings like wood and would.
I do think perhaps it's the tenses in French that can be difficult, but the same could be said for English.
Well, it depends on your native language too. English can be easier to learn for francophones (and vice-versa) because a huge chunk of English vocabulary comes from French.
I find French tenses much harder in writing (not so much in normal spoken speech). English doesn't even have a real future tense.
Natnasci - you are right. English has insane spelling rules (or NO rules as the case may be!). It's highly irregular compared to Latin and Germanic languages.
Native speakers of English who read and write a lot tend to be better at spelling, because they form a visual connection with written English, i.e. by constantly seeing words written down, they "memorise" English spelling.
That is why high levels of literacy in the English language tends to be lower than in some other languages. In one UK study of adults with low literacy levels - 65% said their difficulties were mainly due to spelling.
Acajack - I agree with what you say. In certain professions, you do not need perfect English !
I was really only talking about the types of profession (such as law or medicine) where near-perfect English is necessary and that is why here in the UK professionals are required to achieve a very high score (a min. of 7) on every single paper they do for the IELTS examination. I believe this is also the case in Canada, Australia and NZ. A lot of my professional students struggled for several years to get such high scores on their English exams.
But of course, the UK now has many newly-arrived immigrants (mainly East Europeans) who have beginner level English, and they manage to work well in a variety of jobs which do not require professional qualifications.
I'm sure this is also the case with the French language. You would need an extremely advanced level to work in the highly skilled professions (such as law) in Quebec, but I'm currently a business owner in the online retail sector, so I can probably get away with intermediate level French ? (I hope ???)
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but I strongly disagree that English is much easier. Elementary English may be easier, but not advanced English. 
