by Beth Butler
Finding fun, affordable and practical things to do with young children is not always that easy. Then throw into the mix trying to incorporate other cultures and languages and the task becomes that more challenging. Uncover three easy and affordable things you can do today with your child to begin a second language journey.
With each passing day of our lives we are faced with the realization that this world is ever shrinking. We encounter new neighbors from other countries, colleagues who speak more than one language, and friends of our children come from various walks of life and far away countries. It is evident that our own children need to be prepared for this global society in which they will travel as young adults sooner than we care to imagine.
As a parent of three children and an educator of thousands I live this realization every day! I search for ways in which I can bring to my family not only knowledge of other lands where people look, live, sound and eat differently but also ways in which I can help them communicate with people from around the world.
I have done my own internet searches and conducted my own personal research about which language is the best choice for my family to begin learning in addition to English. It is obvious that learning Spanish as a second language here in the United States is the most practical choice if we want to use our new found language on a daily basis. Experts suggest using the new target language daily if you hope to become bilingual, and I know we will use it every day in our community that has experienced marked Latino growth.
The most recent research suggests that more than 350 million people world wide speak Spanish. Add on top of that the ease with which our children will learn the other romance languages, and it is almost a given to choose Spanish as the language for our family. For those of you reading this, the target language might be a native language you grew up using as a child or perhaps a language you are surrounded by in your community.
The language choice is really not the issue here; it is finding three things you can do right now, today, with ease and affordability to bring that language into your life, into your family and into your daily routine. Shall we begin with the most available and free one? Your local library. I know, I know. Some of you might not have stepped foot into a library since your last college term paper, but I am telling you now that libraries of today do not even resemble the libraries of my childhood era!
At your local library they hold events that often times surround other cultures from countries far away. There are puppet shows, storytelling, music and movement time, and playgroups offered at libraries across our country that incorporate languages and cultural traditions indigenous to countries outside the United States. You and your children are bound to hear the new language being spoken often and in context with many visual cues which is a great way to introduce a new language and begin the neural pathway connections for learning the new language.
If your local library has not begun to offer such wonderful variety, all they need is your prompting to get the ball rolling. While at your library between events, check out the bilingual offerings they have for free checkout. What? You do not have a local library card! Shame on you! Get your free library card today to open up a whole new world to your young child without dropping a dime on books, DVDs, and CDs.
The library of today has a variety of books presented in English and Spanish or English and French and so on to allow your child to read his native language right next to the new language. This is a method called the bilingual method which many experts agree is the best way to introduce a new language to children under the age of eight. If you search, you will even encounter DVDs and CDs presented in this seamless bilingual format, a format that allows you to hear and see the new language alongside the native language of English. Truly a comfortable and easy way to begin the second language journey!
Next up on our list of things to do as you discover new languages with your child is to attend local cultural events, markets, fairs, and craft shows that highlight food, music, jewelry, artisan crafts and more from other countries. While there you are certain to hear the new language you have chosen to learn as a family woven throughout the event. From attendees to vendors to a young child your child might end up playing with. What a gift to give your child, the ability to communicate with more people in this wonderful world!
Check your local newspaper listing or go online for local events surrounding the countries that speak the new language you wish to learn together. It truly is about doing this together. There is a reason so many middle school students end up disliking learning foreign languages. First of all just the words foreign languages seem to hold a negative connotation. Perhaps if our schools would refer to them as world languages it would seem more appealing to a thirteen year old student.
If you start young with your child, discovering language learning fun together, then when the middle school years come, your little genius will have her brain wired for a lifetime of language learning. The best news out of the research blocks is that your child might learn a certain new language with you during the early years yet choose a totally different language come formal school years. No worries there say the experts. You gave your child the gift of wiring the neural pathway connections necessary for language acquisition early enough in life to make any later language learning that much easier.
Last up on my list of things you can do easily and affordably to jump start the new language learning in your home is using the internet. No computer at home? No excuse! Go back to that local library I mentioned earlier for free use of their computers and online connections. Most families these days have at least one computer in their home.
Use a search engine to find games in your new language. Many of these games are online and free. Sometimes you might find a board game you can purchase for a decent price to use on a regular basis for reinforcement of the language learning. There are cool bingo games in various languages, and I have yet to find a child or an adult who does not enjoy an occasional game of bingo! Concerned that your pronunciation might not be great in the target language and you might confuse your kiddos? Do not be! Even linguistic PhDs Kendall King and Alison Mackey who wrote the book titled The Bilingual Edge insist that you do not have to be a native speaker to introduce a new language to your child.
Now do a search for music in your new language. Try to find music that showcases both the new language and the native language side by side in each song. That means you and Junior will enjoy hearing the word dog sung right before they sing the word perro. Or in a song about the days of the week you will hear the word lunes right before the word Monday. It is that bilingual method again that provides a point of reference for you as the adult and for your child.
Experts suggest that while your child is still learning skills in English do not yank English out of the picture and just present the new language by itself, a method referred to as immersion. Many experts say that by placing the two languages side by side helps with decoding of the language and thus leads to early reading skills and advanced cognitive development. What terrific benefits from simply preparing your young child for a global future!
Online searches are free and provide us with a multitude of resources which we can many times sample to determine if they are a good fit for our family and the learning styles each person in our family responds to. Make it a family affair. Use the older siblings as the lead teachers as your younger children soak it all in. The same linguistic professors whom I mentioned earlier are also moms raising their own children to be bilingual, and their research suggests it is never too late to learn a new language. It just gets a little harder after the age of ten or twelve.
Start early! Start now! Make language learning a lifetime skill for your young children today!
Bilingual consultant, keynote speaker and children's recording artist Beth Butler is enjoyed on The Education Channel and via the CDs and DVDs her company creates. You can sample the BOCA BETH bilingual music and movies for free at http://www.bocabeth.com. Call toll free 1.877.825.2622
Finding fun, affordable and practical things to do with young children is not always that easy. Then throw into the mix trying to incorporate other cultures and languages and the task becomes that more challenging. Uncover three easy and affordable things you can do today with your child to begin a second language journey.
With each passing day of our lives we are faced with the realization that this world is ever shrinking. We encounter new neighbors from other countries, colleagues who speak more than one language, and friends of our children come from various walks of life and far away countries. It is evident that our own children need to be prepared for this global society in which they will travel as young adults sooner than we care to imagine.
As a parent of three children and an educator of thousands I live this realization every day! I search for ways in which I can bring to my family not only knowledge of other lands where people look, live, sound and eat differently but also ways in which I can help them communicate with people from around the world.
I have done my own internet searches and conducted my own personal research about which language is the best choice for my family to begin learning in addition to English. It is obvious that learning Spanish as a second language here in the United States is the most practical choice if we want to use our new found language on a daily basis. Experts suggest using the new target language daily if you hope to become bilingual, and I know we will use it every day in our community that has experienced marked Latino growth.
The most recent research suggests that more than 350 million people world wide speak Spanish. Add on top of that the ease with which our children will learn the other romance languages, and it is almost a given to choose Spanish as the language for our family. For those of you reading this, the target language might be a native language you grew up using as a child or perhaps a language you are surrounded by in your community.
The language choice is really not the issue here; it is finding three things you can do right now, today, with ease and affordability to bring that language into your life, into your family and into your daily routine. Shall we begin with the most available and free one? Your local library. I know, I know. Some of you might not have stepped foot into a library since your last college term paper, but I am telling you now that libraries of today do not even resemble the libraries of my childhood era!
At your local library they hold events that often times surround other cultures from countries far away. There are puppet shows, storytelling, music and movement time, and playgroups offered at libraries across our country that incorporate languages and cultural traditions indigenous to countries outside the United States. You and your children are bound to hear the new language being spoken often and in context with many visual cues which is a great way to introduce a new language and begin the neural pathway connections for learning the new language.
If your local library has not begun to offer such wonderful variety, all they need is your prompting to get the ball rolling. While at your library between events, check out the bilingual offerings they have for free checkout. What? You do not have a local library card! Shame on you! Get your free library card today to open up a whole new world to your young child without dropping a dime on books, DVDs, and CDs.
The library of today has a variety of books presented in English and Spanish or English and French and so on to allow your child to read his native language right next to the new language. This is a method called the bilingual method which many experts agree is the best way to introduce a new language to children under the age of eight. If you search, you will even encounter DVDs and CDs presented in this seamless bilingual format, a format that allows you to hear and see the new language alongside the native language of English. Truly a comfortable and easy way to begin the second language journey!
Next up on our list of things to do as you discover new languages with your child is to attend local cultural events, markets, fairs, and craft shows that highlight food, music, jewelry, artisan crafts and more from other countries. While there you are certain to hear the new language you have chosen to learn as a family woven throughout the event. From attendees to vendors to a young child your child might end up playing with. What a gift to give your child, the ability to communicate with more people in this wonderful world!
Check your local newspaper listing or go online for local events surrounding the countries that speak the new language you wish to learn together. It truly is about doing this together. There is a reason so many middle school students end up disliking learning foreign languages. First of all just the words foreign languages seem to hold a negative connotation. Perhaps if our schools would refer to them as world languages it would seem more appealing to a thirteen year old student.
If you start young with your child, discovering language learning fun together, then when the middle school years come, your little genius will have her brain wired for a lifetime of language learning. The best news out of the research blocks is that your child might learn a certain new language with you during the early years yet choose a totally different language come formal school years. No worries there say the experts. You gave your child the gift of wiring the neural pathway connections necessary for language acquisition early enough in life to make any later language learning that much easier.
Last up on my list of things you can do easily and affordably to jump start the new language learning in your home is using the internet. No computer at home? No excuse! Go back to that local library I mentioned earlier for free use of their computers and online connections. Most families these days have at least one computer in their home.
Use a search engine to find games in your new language. Many of these games are online and free. Sometimes you might find a board game you can purchase for a decent price to use on a regular basis for reinforcement of the language learning. There are cool bingo games in various languages, and I have yet to find a child or an adult who does not enjoy an occasional game of bingo! Concerned that your pronunciation might not be great in the target language and you might confuse your kiddos? Do not be! Even linguistic PhDs Kendall King and Alison Mackey who wrote the book titled The Bilingual Edge insist that you do not have to be a native speaker to introduce a new language to your child.
Now do a search for music in your new language. Try to find music that showcases both the new language and the native language side by side in each song. That means you and Junior will enjoy hearing the word dog sung right before they sing the word perro. Or in a song about the days of the week you will hear the word lunes right before the word Monday. It is that bilingual method again that provides a point of reference for you as the adult and for your child.
Experts suggest that while your child is still learning skills in English do not yank English out of the picture and just present the new language by itself, a method referred to as immersion. Many experts say that by placing the two languages side by side helps with decoding of the language and thus leads to early reading skills and advanced cognitive development. What terrific benefits from simply preparing your young child for a global future!
Online searches are free and provide us with a multitude of resources which we can many times sample to determine if they are a good fit for our family and the learning styles each person in our family responds to. Make it a family affair. Use the older siblings as the lead teachers as your younger children soak it all in. The same linguistic professors whom I mentioned earlier are also moms raising their own children to be bilingual, and their research suggests it is never too late to learn a new language. It just gets a little harder after the age of ten or twelve.
Start early! Start now! Make language learning a lifetime skill for your young children today!
Bilingual consultant, keynote speaker and children's recording artist Beth Butler is enjoyed on The Education Channel and via the CDs and DVDs her company creates. You can sample the BOCA BETH bilingual music and movies for free at http://www.bocabeth.com. Call toll free 1.877.825.2622
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