Benefits of bilingual learning, by French school principal

The increasingly competitive nature of the world today has made it ever more imperative that today’s pupils are exposed to a comprehensive set of values towards preparing them for the future.

Principal of Lycée Français Louis Pasteur, a Lagos State-based French school, Alain Berna said that explains why among other things, the school takes advantage of the diversity of its students and the languages they practice to make plurilingual education one of its priorities.

The school is a member of the worldwide network of schools operating under the French Agency for Teaching Abroad (AEFE), managed by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Berna spoke while showcasing the French primary school system to parents, with a view to espousing the school’s French curriculum, making comparison with other international curricula, and highlighting the school’s bilingual teaching.

He insisted that the French educational system promotes strong positive values such as freedom, equality, togetherness, respect, spirit of justice, solidarity, freedom of speech, openness, creative spirit and diversity.

“The French language is the paramount language of instruction, but it does not overshadow learning in many other languages like English, Spanish, German and many others on request,” he noted.

Berna added that apart from all these, pupils that pass through the school are trained to develop curiosity and courage with which they can excel in all of their chosen endeavours.

“The primary school is the gateway to the French school system, which is divided into the 8 kindergarten classes and the 14 elementary classes,”

Director of the primary school, Mrs. Pascale Lagleize, in her remarks said the school’s “ambition is to provide all pupils, whatever their origin, with quality, content-rich, multilingual and multicultural education, as well as universal values.”

Lagleize explained that while following the French national curriculum, students benefit from reinforced English teaching through the bilingual system, adding that personalised support, citizens, artistic, cultural projects, as well as numerous extracurricular activities complement this teaching and allow pupils to learn at their own pace and to flourish.

“This is why we are inviting parents to come so we can rub minds with them and show them how our system works,” Lagleize said.