Thursday 15 December 2016

Bilingual sessions on BBC news

Did you see the BBC Oxford news last night 14th Dec 2016?

Two teachers in Oxford have started running French, Spanish and Mandarin classes for babies.

Young children can cope with learning up to four languages even before they speak English, research has shown.

The classes are full of songs, nursery rhymes and stories to stimulate their young minds.

This is the type of thing I have been doing with French, in Swindon since 2013 .

There are many benefits of learning a language early, some which may surprise you and which go beyond the use use of a second language.

Here are podcasts that explain more and about how children learn and benefits of learning other languages.

Episode one 27min   and Episode two 27min

Being bilingual, I very much relate to the descriptions given about how the brain works differently, I regularly experience this in everyday life activities.

Monday 5 December 2016

FREE Christmas special event

Purton House Organic Farm have Christmas activities on Sat 10 and Sunday 11th Dec 2016  For all the details of this event see their page

At 2pm on Saturday there will be a special free Bilingual Rhyme and story time session lasting about 30 min followed by the opportunity to purchase my book at a reduced rate.

Here is one of the many the songs I use in these bilingual nursery rhyme sessions. 

If you would like to know about more events sign up or join my FB page .






Wednesday 27 July 2016

Testimonial for my book


Counting Nursery Rhymes book reviews



Susan Jillian Walklate - Educator
 “This series of books has been cleverly developed by Julie K.Nicholls.

She has skilfully translated well known and well loved English nursery rhymes into French, while keeping rhythm, cadence and rhyme.

It combines the enjoyment of nursery rhymes with our first exploration into a new language. It introduces children to a foreign language in a natural and relaxed way.

This book has easy to read text with fun to follow actions, colourful illustrations and a CD so that you can Sing-Along with Julie.

This provides an essential learning experience as it has been proven that bilingual children achieve better results in their education”.

L age 9: “The book is good, because if you are French or English, you can read it. I think it is really good, because it has numbers in English and French for the different countries. The CD is a really good idea, because the French people may not know how to pronounce the English, nor the English the French.”

L’s parents about using the book and CD: “Clearly, the CD is the vital part.  It is really done well and the bilingual format gets across the point that languages are spoken at a certain pace and that you need to speak and listen at that pace. That’s probably the key feature and benefit of the book.  The fact that these are nursery rhymes, implies that they should be repeated time and again until second nature, very clever. The illustrations make more sense once you are listening and start singing along with the kids.”

“Using the book one appreciates the work that has gone in to making it. All round, a great job you should be proud of!”

Angela Atkinson AA Editorial Services
“This is a lovely and much-needed idea. Language teaching in our schools is pitiful: by and large too little too late. So every little helps and these rhymes are translated into French with great care.
I've bought this for my granddaughter who is approaching one year old. I've copied the CD into iTunes so I can easily access the tunes from my iPad and iphone.
If you want your child to start getting some early experience with another language, this a good way to start - and good value for money.” 

Friday 22 July 2016

French fun event 6th Aug

Come and have some fun for 90 min . No French needed.


The session begins with some play time (approx 45min)- colouring, puzzles, watching a short cartoon in French if it is raining, followed by approx 40 min of bilingual songs and stories some taken from my book 

Though theses sessions are offered free, a donation would be appreciated
Places are limited so booking is essential please book seats per child. (You will not need to print the ticket, I will have your name on the list of attendees). 
 Booking is essential via this link https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/french-fun-sat-6th-aug-tickets-26718466653

Free parking in the street and surrounding ones.

Please ring the bell on the gate.

Friday 13 May 2016

FREE, June, French fun time

Come and have some fun for 90 min . No French needed.

 Booking is essential via this link https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/french-fun-12th-june-tickets…

The session begins with some play time (approx 45min)- colouring, puzzles, watching a short cartoon in French if it is raining, followed by approx 40 min of bilingual songs and stories some taken from my book (see video below).

Though theses sessions are offered free, a donation would be appreciated
Places are limited so booking is essential please book seats per child. (You will not need to print the ticket, I will have your name on the list of attendees).
Free parking in the street and surrounding ones.

Please ring the bell on the gate.

In  April we had fun with dominos





This is one of the songs we sang- Frere Jaques

Friday 29 April 2016

French spring song for children

Here is a fun French springtime song to get everyone in a good mood.
Spring is le printemps. C'est le printemps  means it's springtime.  Temps means time as in a duration (do we have time to do this) not a specific time (what time is it).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Robs0s4S-Yg