In today’s lesson (to be written up later), Nyah came up with some encouraging requests. One was to begin reading. I had already scouted out a couple of books for her and I warned her she would run into vocabulary she doesn’t know. She was OK with that. Very, very encouraging.
She asked about how certain sounds are made, so I suggested we carve out a space to demonstrate how to make sounds in French. It came up when she asked about the word ‘detail’ which is pronounced detay, with an off-glide. I mentioned that it is different from “that’s a nice tie” b/c the mouth is held tighter than in English, more tense. That seemed to interest her. This could be a sign of moving toward speaking. I have an upcoming activity designed to promote that without pressing her. If she is on the verge of speech, then she is conforming to the time-table given by Ben Slavic in TRPS in a Year, give or take a month based on her being a solo student.
She also asked how to say “just” and when I gave her several meanings of ‘just’ and said their equivalents in French, she wanted to know what that is, etc. Great question, as the politicians say.