We're a bilingual country and here it was being taught in school. To me, that's a free gift and I wanted him to have it. Tyler, not as academically inclined as his brother, struggled a little. But Ms. Ballantyne held out hope that he would eventually master the new language. In the early years, his difficulties were not quite so obvious.
Teachers use gestures to illustrate the simple ideas.
And Tyler has a good memory. He can memorize dictation so when he has a test, he does well. But if you ask him what the words mean, he doesn't know. Tyler says his trouble in French started this year. And now, though his mother says he likes to learn and works extremely hard at it, he has joined the legion of children who have lost their enthusiasm for school.