• 1 • Production of the French children's magazine "Enfantaisie" hi often a family ~ffair for PSU French professor Mich~eI Gould, his wife Vivtane Heft) and their children, Kim (center) and Marco (not shown). The magazine grew out of the couple's efforts to design French language activities for their sons. Magazine's aim is to keep French alive in the home with a couple of years of French behind them will be challenged by the stories, while preschoolers like Marco can absorb new words and ideas by coloring and cutting out the magazine's many illustrations, drawn by Viviane. For each issue, Michael authors a scholarly essay in English to help parents and teachers better utilize the magazine. by Cynthia D. Stowell The arrival of the mail at Michael and Viviane Gould's home in southeast Portland is a moment of palpable tension. One hovers while the other quickly shuffles through the envelopes. Christmas cards and other friendly notes are impatiently tossed aside in the anxious search for the kind words "Pay to the order of fnfantaisie. " Such a message means another subscription for the French children's magazine the Goulds produce frorn their upstairs office. Enfantaisie has excited the interest of over 700 subscribers in less than a year of publication, but that's not enough of a following to allow its editors to relax. "Enfantaisie is very original, II says Michael Gould, an assistant professor of French at Portland State since 1979. "There's no other magazine like it in the United States. But it's nol tnat nobody's thought of it. It's that there's no money in it!" Gould admits that the potential market for a magazine like Enfantaisie is "extremely small." But he and Viviane, a French native, have discovered from the "love letters" they receive that they are filling a very real need with their 2S·page bimonthly magazine. "We never realized so rnany people were in a situation like ours - trying to keep French alive at home," said Michael. The couple speak only french with their sons Kim, 9, and Marco, 21!.z, and Enfantaisie grew out of their efforts to create fun learning activities in French for the youngsters. Now parents and teachers all over the U.S. are using the Goulds' ideas to work with bilingual children. Among their subscribers are teachers and students at Portland's Catlin Gabel School and in the FlES (Foreign languages in Elementary Schools) programs in lake Oswego and Oregon City. And if the Goulds' negotiations with a French publishing house go well, Enfantaisie could enlarge its sphere to other non-French-speaking countries. "Enfantaisie" is a coined word combining the French words for child and creative fancy. The name describes well the contents of the magazine, which is filled with stories, games, comics and informative articles on topics ranging from computers to natural history. "Everything is subtly linguistically oriented," said Gould, "but the grammar is hidden so the child doesn'l think he's gening lessons." Children of all ages can enjoy Enfantaisie, noted Gould. Even adults Behind the bold, attractive pages of Enfantaisie lie the Goulds' carefully considered assumptions about how children learn a language. Following the adventures of comic strip character "Julie," who is constantly fielding requests from her unseen parents, children are learning conversational, idiomatic French much as they have learned their own language - through commands. Enfantaisie, which is entirely in frencn except for the two editorial pages at the front, reflects the "direct method" of language teaching used by Gould in his classrooms. In this immersion approach, "you're not translating, you're demonstrating," explained Gould. Enfantaisie's poems, games and pictures "open up the language to the right side of the brain, the side that touches and feels, not analyzes and translates," said Gould. The French scholar remembers the very moment in college when ne began reading directly in french instead of translating into English. It was a breakthrough after many years of "left side" instruction that had left him only a "mediocre student" of French. Despite his late start, Gould went on to earn his doctorate in "French happens to be the language that caught my fantaisie . " French from laval University in Quebec, after three years of research in Paris, where he met Viviane. A former street artist, Viviane has degrees in botany and landscape architecture. Enfantaisie has brought the- couple's personal and work lives together in a satisfying, if not lucrative, way. "I felt isolated before Enfantaisie, and was afraid the kids would lose their French," said Viviane. "Now I'm in touch with people all over the country who are in the same position. " "I love it," she said about prodUcing Enfantaisie. "I could work on it twenty hours a day." Around deadline time she comes dose to that, but still leaves time to teach French at the Metropolitan learning Center one afternoon a week, and to lead a Monday evening conversation group for French speakers. The Goulds feel their children are very fortunate to be growing up bilingually. As "islands in a sea of English," they are learning two languages very naturally, said their father. "It does marvelous things in the formative years to have another language present," offered Gould. "Studies have shown that bilingual children are stronger in their native language than monolingual children. It "No one language covers all of reality," he continued. "Any language system provides a frame for reality. A second language just puts the frame around the picture differentfy." Bilingualism can be a good prevention for "xenophobia," feels Gould. "If we remain linguistically isolated, we tend to fall into certain patterns, cultural stereotypes. It's important to learn that foreign cultures are different but not inferior. uWe live in a world community and communication is the key to peace in the world." But, pourquoi Ie francais? Why French in a country that has no significant French subculture? "French is an international language," reasoned Gould. "It is politically and economically very important, but of course, culturally it is no more important than other languages. "French happens to be the language that caught my fantaisie. " 9
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