The students at Charlotte Mason’s schools studied a few different foreign languages: French, German, Italian, and Latin (introduced in that order). Her method was so successful that childrens could even narrate in French what they read or listened to.
Charlotte started with French because it was the most useful language for that particular geographical area (France was right across the Channel). In america though, kids should be learning Spanish as a second language due to it being the 2nd most spoken languange in the country.
She taught French gradually over many years with 3 different stages:
Stage 1 Grades 1-3. She introduced it with songs, games and the Gouin series. (More about Gouin later)
Stage 2 Grades 4-6. She expanded the stage 1 and added reading and writing. And here she introduced a stage 1 of a third language (German).
Stage 3 Grades 7-9. She expanded second and third language and added a fourth one (Italian).
In CMSS we will give you the tools you need for that first stage of learning.
Now, here are some quotes to help us understand her Foreign Language teaching method and that are the foundation of the CMSS curriculum:
1.-Start at an early age, learning two or three, five or six words daily:
"The children should learn French orally, by listening to and repeating French words and phrases; that they should begin so young that the difference of accent does not strike them, but they repeat the new French word all the same as if it were English and use it as freely; that they should learn a few–two or three, five or six– new French words daily, and that, at the same time, the old words should be kept in use–are points to be considered more fully hereafter…” Home Education, page 80
2.-Have daily lessons, which may be outdoors. Nature vocabulary.
"...it is so important to keep tongue and ear familiar with French vocables, that not a lesson should be omitted. The French lesson may, however, be made to fit in with spirit of the other out-of-door occupations; the half-dozen words may be the parts– leaves, branches, bark, trunk of the tree, or the colors of the flowers, or the movements of bird, cloud, lamb, child; in fact, the new French words should be but another form of expression for the ideas that for the time fill the child’s mind.” Home Education, pages 80-81
3.-Delayed written words.
"The child should never see French words in print until he has learned to say them with as much ease and readiness as if they were English." Home Education page 301.
4.-Learn Idioms.
"Of course, his teacher will take care that, in giving words, she gives idioms also..." Home Education page 301
5.- learn words in the context of a sentence and keep them in use daily
"...and that as he learns new words, they are put into sentences and kept in use from day to day." Home education page 301.
6.- The teacher keeps track of the new sentences
""A notebook in which she enters the child's new words and sentences will easily enable the teacher to do this".
7.- learning through series
"No doubt Mr. Gouin's method should be more succesful than any other in steeping the student (child or man) in German or French thought." Home Education page 303
In short, the Gouin Series are a group of very short statements describing step of an action. A Ball series may look like this:
I pick up the ball
I throw the ball to the air
I drop the ball
The ball bounces
You act all the statements as you say the in English first and then in the target language to make connections and learn each word in a context so that you can think in a second language.
You can read Gouin's book here
8.- Learning through book and pictures
"The method of teaching may be varied, partly because that recommended by M. Gouin requires a perfect command of the French tongue, and teachers who are diffident find a conversational method founded on book and picture easier to work and perhaps as effectual-more so, some people think..."home education page 306.