Teaching Kids English or French Before Moving to Canada

Every language-test article on this site is about adults sitting IELTS or CELPIP for immigration points. Your children don't need a CLB score — there's no language test attached to a dependent child's part of an Express Entry application. But teaching kids English or French before moving to Canada is still worth doing, because starting a new school in a new country is hard enough without also decoding an unfamiliar accent, vocabulary and classroom rhythm on day one.

Why this is worth doing informally

There's no exam to prep for here, which is actually freeing. You're not managing band scores or CLB thresholds — you're building comfort and confidence in a language your child may already partly know. For most South African households, that starting point is strong: English is already a home or school language for the majority of families considering this move. The task isn't teaching English from scratch; it's closing small gaps in accent familiarity, vocabulary, and classroom expectations before a child walks into a Canadian classroom for the first time.

A simple pre-move checklist

• Add Canadian voices alongside whatever British or American media they already watch. Canadian children's media, podcasts and shows use vocabulary and accents your child will hear daily at school. This is a lighter version of the same listening-familiarity issue adult test-takers run into with CELPIP.
• Talk openly about what's changing. Kids pick up on parental stress about the move; naming it plainly, in age-appropriate terms, reduces anxiety more than language drills do.
• Practise reading aloud together, in whichever language applies. Confidence with spoken rhythm matters more at this age than vocabulary lists.
• If you're heading toward Quebec, start building French exposure early. Quebec runs its own selection system and functions largely in French; a child arriving there with even basic French vocabulary and listening exposure will settle in faster than one starting from zero. This matters more for Quebec-bound families than for the rest of Canada, where French exposure is a bonus rather than a daily necessity.
• Don't over-formalise it. Games, shows, books and conversation do more for a child's comfort than structured lessons at this stage — save formal instruction for the classroom they'll actually be entering.
• Ask your intended school district, once you know it, what settlement or language-support services exist for newcomer children. Canadian schools generally have some infrastructure for this; finding out what it looks like before you arrive removes one unknown from a long list.

What not to worry about

Don't chase a specific vocabulary target or benchmark for your child the way you would for your own IELTS or CELPIP preparation. There's no CLB equivalent for a ten-year-old, and treating this like an exam to pass risks adding pressure where none is needed. The goal is comfort and familiarity.

The honest framing

Most South African children moving to Canada already have real English fluency going in. What they're missing is Canadian-specific exposure — the accents, the everyday expressions, the classroom culture — not the language itself. A few months of relaxed, low-pressure exposure before departure closes most of that gap. For families genuinely settling in Quebec, the same logic applies to French, just starting from a different baseline and needing a longer runway.

Cape2Canada's free Settling In Canada guide covers what a family's first weeks and months typically involve, including the school registration process worth having on your checklist before you land.