Are There Many Ways To Help My Child Learn A New Language?

Are There Many Ways To Help My Child Learn A New Language?
Learning a second language at school can be very difficult for a number of reasons, and generally isn't all that effective at producing a fluent speaker. Many children will progress much more rapidly by being encouraged to mix with other bilingual children, reading a foreign language or watching foreign language TV shows.

by Clare Innes

Learning a second language at school can be very difficult for a number of reasons, and generally isn’t all that effective at producing a fluent speaker. Many children will progress much more rapidly by being encouraged to mix with other bilingual children, reading a foreign language or watching foreign language TV shows.

Parents can play a huge role in helping their kids to learn a new language, so here are just a few ideas:

1. Emigrate!

2. Reading and watching TV

3. Help them make bilingual friends

4. Lead by example

5. Make a game out of it

6. Foreign exchange visits

7. Holiday away

8. Hire a Nanny or Au Pair that speaks your childs target language

9. Buy CD-ROMs, books, videos, on-line courses, etc

10. Private lessons

Packing up and leaving

You may think this a rather drastic move, but it is, without doubt, the most effective way to make your child bilingual. Once the initial fear and intimidation is put aside, your child will start communicating with the local children and new language skills will develop dramatically. It may be as little as 3 months before the child is able to hold a fluent conversation, although the grammar and stuff will come a bit later).

Watching TV and reading foreign reading material

It is exactly what it says. Look for foreign TV channels and encourage your children to watch them. You could make it a bit of a quest, limiting normal TV to 2 hours a day, but no limit on the foreign stuff.

If you live in a cosmopolitan area, try the local newsagency for reading material that will suit your childs iinterests but it is in a foreign language. Now try and push them a little to learn and then to show off their new language skills and knowledge at school.

Help them make bilingual friends

Unless you live in Siberia, you probably have people of many different nationalities living around you. Encourage your kids to befriend children bilingual in their target language, or who don’t speak your mother tongue well. You’ll be amazed at just how quickly children begin to communicate with one another.

If you go to church or another religious community every week, why not go to a foreign speaking one to learn a new language? Try once a month, then go more often. You will probably be invited to take part to some kind of community activity afterwards, an excellent opportunity to practice your own skills, include your child and make new friends.

Do it your way!

Begin at an early age by giving your children the idea that knowing several languages is a sign of excellence; something desirable. Do it yourself and include your child in your home studies so that you learn together. Furthermore, show them that this can be fun and quite easy (and not just a boring lesson at school!), and encourage them all the way.

Have fun a make it a challenge

Buy a cheap clock-radio and get your child to have a wake up call in a foreign language! Don’t worry if the early morning banter doesn’t accomplish much, but it may help your child to get into the music of a different culture. You’ll be surprised at how many new words and phrases can be learned from the music alone.

Have an I-pay-your-foreign-books-and-movies policy with your kids. There are many excellent movies that run in foreign languages in most big cities, and many foreign language bookshops as well. If you pay for those, you give your kids a strong incentive to practice the languages they learn.

Exchange students

Arrange a year abroad for your child, or a few months in the summer at least. This will only cost you the flight ticket, as another child (let’s say, a young Spaniard) will come to your house for the same amount of time. For those who actually did this during their teenage years, this is one of the most meaningful experiences of their youth. And the languages learned early stay forever, and with a much better accent too.

Holiday abroad

Decide a few months in advance that you are going to book a holiday where the local language is the language that your child is learning. Tell your child that they will need to be your guide and be able to help the rest of the family whilst they are all away. Hopefully this will motivate them to learn as much as possible so that they can show off their skills when the family is all away together.

Get a foreign Au Pair or Nanny

A great idea is to hire a Housekeeper or Au Pair that will be around your child during the day. Ask her not to communicate too much in English and to always speak to your child in her own mother tongue.

Use books, CD-ROM’s, videos, on-line courses, etc.

Keep things interesting by mixing up childrens language courses in books, videos, on-line courses, etc. A new game on CD-ROM but in another language can always get’em going again!

Private lessons

In most areas, it isn’t too expensive to hire a private language tutor. It is much more effective for your child to receive one-to-one tuition than to try and learn in a classroom filled with other chldren. The way to achieve optimum results, would be to combine this with any of the other methods mentioned earlier.

About the Author:

About the Writer: Clare Innes has a number of health, fitness and general lifestyle sites, including one devoted to how to learn a new language. Watch out for more of her lifestyle sites in the ‘First For….com’ series that is presently being created