Croc Monsieur is a club for primary school children to learn about languages. The language that we spend the most time on is French, but we aim to be more than just “a French club”.

We sing songs in French, we play games using French, we have stories and activities where we use French. We enjoy all that, and so do the kids.

But the aim is not to memorise as many words as we can, and holiday French also isn’t a high priority. Top Tip: if you want to learn some French to use on holiday, it’s absolutely worth doing, but spend a few quid on an app and do it together as a family — it will be more effective than 40 minutes a week with us. Enjoy it!

What we aim to nurture is children’s language awareness. Knowing about how languages work, how different languages relate to each other, what a language is, learning how to learn a language… recent research suggests that these are all far more likely to turn a child into a lifelong language learner than learning another list of vocab.

So we have fun with songs and games and activities, but we stimulate discussion around the topic of languages and language learning, and give high fives for questions that make us think hard too!