Teaching a child a language??

Chollita

I think the comments to the OP were unnecessarily rude. This is an internet forum, and while I'm all in favour of good English, sometimes people write in a different, less formal style here.

Roxie, if you can't find a club, how about some private tuition with someone who specialises in teaching children, or finding out if there are any foreign students in your area? University students would always love some spare cash!

You're right to take the 'earlier the better' approach, if your son genuinely enjoys languages. It's important that he learns from someone who can make the lessons fun, since he is so young.

I would happily teach your son, I speak both languages reasonably well, but I'm nowhere near Derbyshire ... in Spain, actually!

kb36

Stock up on books, cds and dvds whenever you have the opportunity in your target language. Check out for a subscription to a foreign language children's magazine so your child can absorb text even if not of reading age -Pomme d'api/ Youpi (older) are decent french ones. Find local language groups and good internet sites- for alphabet basics www.poissonrouge.com and a couple of songs. My library has a stock of foreign language children's books. Things look like they will improve with the current language learning strategies and some schools are more forward thinking than others - my kids have done french at school from reception . My kids were terrified of that Muzzy thing;) and I found the graphics unsophisticated even for a 4 year old and the content dull - but others rave about it! Get them playing games on the Cbeebies equivalents TF1 etc. Some sites have pronunciation guides for you to listen to so may be worth checking out!

absolutebounder

Chollita wrote: »

I would happily teach your son, I speak both languages reasonably well, but I'm nowhere near Derbyshire ... in Spain, actually!

School holidays coming up. Im sure son could forego the UKs rainy season and doss down at your pad cholly:D

pavlovs_dog

kb36 wrote: »

Check out for a subscription to a foreign language children's magazine so your child can absorb text even if not of reading age -Pomme d'api/ Youpi (older) are decent french ones.

my local borders stock a wide range of imported magazines etc, so if you have one near you it may be worth a look there.

crispeater

Early Learning Centre sell cd's and dvd's for teaching your child french and/or spanish, the cd's are only a fiver.

OfficeSpace

I had no idea Muzzy was still going! My parents started me in extra French classes when i was 9 at primary school and bought a big set of Muzzy tapes. That was back in 1991/2! My brother and I used to watch the English versions though haha!

madtrekker

I think it's great that you're trying to help your children with foreign languages. You can get a free guide (via download) here that will give you ideas on how to learn with your children and give them confidence in a different language. I hope it helps!

http://www.little-linguist.co.uk/parentsguiderequest.html

MrsTinks

As someone multi-lingual I think it's important to let children learn languages early on but also to make sure it's continued through their lives! My brother lived in Norway and England like me yet his norwegian has virtually gone now as he's never used it since we left there. Even his english has suffered a bit.
My youngest half brother is half russian and half danish and speaks both fluently as his mum talks russian to him and my dad speaks danish. His DVDs and books are about half and half too and he spends his summer holidays in Russia so has more exposure again. When home he's in a danish nursery.
He's 4...not bad really
Seriously though, I think teaching a language you cant speak fluently is an impossible task. There are several schools in the UK that promote languages depending on where you live - there is a great one near Abingdon, Oxon called The European School. It's not super cheap but not expensive for a private school.
Money allowing this is where my children will be going.

cazziebo

The reaction to the OP has made me really angry :mad: so this will turn into a rant.

To all of you self righteous people saying you need a good grasp of English grammar in order to learn a new language - tosh and tosh again! The state of language teaching in this country is dire! I didn't start learning languages (French, German and Polish) in a UK school until secondary - and got As every time right up until 6th year. I thought about it at Uni but took English instead. It wasn't until I took a French qualification that I thought I could really communicate in another language. I also did a conversational course at the Goethe Institut and that did more for me than 6 years of school teaching.

One of my first jobs was recruiting linguists for a major computer manufacturer's helpdesk. They wouldn't touch UK graduates because their skills weren't good enough - they would rather take Europeans, not necessarily native speakers.

We go on holiday regularly to Austria and my daughters speak pretty good German - never learned it formally. My younger daughter has picked up a smattering of Mandarin, Russian, Portuguese and Spanish from her time at an International school. Both of them could probably make themselves understood in most languages.

The best way to learn a language is to be exposed to it. It's not about declensions, pronouns, subjunctives. It's about communication.

:T :T Well done to the OP for thinking about this early on!

And I'm not going to apologise for any grammatical errors in this... :rotfl: :rotfl:

pandora205

For interest, I've recently done some research into critical/sensitive periods of deve'opment in childhood and there is evidence from neuroscience that such a 'window of opportunity' is evident for language learning. This is particularly true for the acquisition of grammar, which is learned very easily and naturally up to about age 8 or 9 and then has to be learned more formally. There is no such period for vocabulary learning.

What this means is that children absorb languages very easily during early primary (or preschool) stages but have much more difficulty later, which may account for the poor performance in the UK.

An interesting fact about even earlier development is that newborn babies can perceive sounds in any language during the first few months but lose the ability to discriminate so easily after 12 months, thus reinforcing the 'home' language.

(Anyone wanting to read more try 'The Learning Brain' by Blakemore and Frith - a brilliant and readable book).