February 11th, 2010
Bilingual children seem to be the topic du jour. You cannot open a magazine or watch a news program without seeing or reading about it, and it seems like international schools are blossoming all around most neighborhoods in the New York area. Raising a child bilingually, however, is not a simple choice to make. It takes a lot of work and support from the family or caregiver. So be sure to review these 5 tips before your child embarks on becoming bilingual:
1. Know your child’s strengths. It is important to know from the get-go that all children are not alike. So one method might work remarkably well with one child and be more challenging to another. It is not uncommon to see in the same family one sibling being completely bilingual and the other not. Even though some children are better at learning a language than others, this should not stop you from trying; it is possible for anyone with enough dedication to learn a foreign language.
2. The earlier the better. The earlier a child is exposed to a new language, the easier it will be for him to feel at ease with it. As you may have noticed, as you get older, it gets more and more difficult to learn a new language. It is the same for children. It is easier for a 7-year-old to pick up a foreign language than for a 16-year-old. Furthermore, even if a 16-year-old becomes bilingual, he/she will, for the most part, keep an accent, unlike the 7-year-old.
3. Be patient. On the other hand, you cannot expect your child to become bilingual just by going to an international pre-school for two years. A child at such a young age has to learn so many new concepts other than language that he will need many more years to fully grasp a second language.
4. Do it for the right reason. If you decide that you want your child to speak a foreign language even if you don’t, it is possible, but do it for the right reason. Don’t do it to impress others; do it for your child’s future. It is a difficult choice to make, so you should be prepared for the challenges and discipline that will be involved.
5. Expose your child to the foreign language as much as possible. If you decide to put your child in an international school, which is the best way for him or her to become bilingual, be sure to also expose him to the foreign language in a non-school environment. He will be more willing to embrace a foreign language for the long term if he needs to use it on a daily basis. It is also a good idea to hire a nanny who is a native speaker, to travel to a country where that language is spoken, make play dates with children who speak the foreign language.
All of those elements will give your child the greatest chance of becoming bilingual.
February 9th, 2010
1.) Other kids: Join (or start) a playgroup for the second language. Children of all ages will learn from each other; there simply are no better language teachers than other kids. An added bonus will be that you will connect with other parents of bilingual children.
2.) Books: Of course you know how vital those precious one-on-one moments are, but remember that they can be infused with language learning also. Books are the most effective tool for teaching language, and so I advise all parents: “Start reading at birth and never stop!” A good way to add to reading time (and make it really personal) is to create a dialogue, encouraging your child’s comments, responses, and elaborations. Talk about what the characters are like and what they might be doing next.
3.) The right stuff: From books, add video, television and games. There are a multitude of aides towards fluency. In particular, games that use rhyming will make the most of language memory, but “I Spy”, “Bingo” and “Memory” with picture cards will also playfully build vocabulary.
4.) Sing and dance: Children absolutely love music, but don’t rely solely on recorded music; your own singing, even if it is off-key, will still serve to unite melody and words for your child more surely than any professional recording ever could. Melody is also a fantastic memory aid. Think about how much easier children learn their ABCs when they sing them, compared to just reciting them. And, the combination of music with movement and gestures will enliven it all — as well as provide a nice outlet for squirmy toddlers.
5.) Tap into their interests: Whatever your child’s enthusiasms may be — whether a love of soccer, dance, or horses — make an effort to ‘involve’ these passions in the minority language. ”My 3-year old son is a really big “Bob de Bouwer” (Bob the Builder) fan,” says Martijn Fredriks. “So now we always watch it in Dutch, and he’s even started speaking in Dutch when he plays with the Bob the Builder toys.”
6.) Be creative: The trick is to give the child lots to talk about, so draw out that conversation! Encourage them to make up their own stories, play dress-up and pretend in the second language. Even painting, working with sidewalk chalk, or molding clay usually creates more vocabulary than art! Older children may enjoy calling or using a webcam for calls overseas (one such free service is Skype).
7.) Outside the box: Isabella Vellaccio, a mother in Washington DC, who reached beyond the obvious says, “I wanted my son to hear Italian from someone else than just me, and the playgroups were all during my working hours.” Isabella decided to attend the church coffee after the Italian mass on Sundays. “The older Italian parishioners were thrilled to see him learn Italian.” Needless to say, with that much attention, and Italian cookies, he loved it.
8.) Baby sitter: Find a college student who speaks the language, or for something more consistent, try a nanny or an au-pair.
9.) Visits: The ultimate language boost is to visit the country where it is spoken. Total immersion for a couple of weeks has an amazing effect. And visits from friends or family also provide a valuable boost.
10.) Enthusiasm: While the quantity of spoken language is the most important factor in learning a language, the second most vital ingredient is the amount of positive feedback the child hears. Early on, when a child is struggling to get those first syllables out, resist the urge to correct…it can actually inhibit language skills.
February 9th, 2010
One easy way to almost trick your childen into learning French, is to drop these reoccuring English words and only say them in French and/or Spanish. You just say them and say them and eventually your children will pick them up because you will say them so often in the correct context. You can start out with one or 2 words and see if it works for you (and for your kids).
Here are a few translations to get you started:
Of course – bien sûr – Por supuesto
no – non – no
yes – oui – si
here – ici – aqui
there – là – ahi
I don’t know – je ne sais pas – yo no se
please – s’il vous plaît – por favor
thank you – merci – gracias
you’re welcome – de rien - de nada
January 27th, 2010
Incorporating vocabulary into your everyday routine is a great way to teach your child french. The supermarket offers a great context for learning words that will be used daily. Here is a list of vocabulary to help you on your next trip to the grocery store:
star fruit – le fruit d’étoile
cantalope – le cantaloup
grapefruit – le pamplemousse
mango – la mangue
nectarine – la nectarine
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January 26th, 2010
Be understood in 55 countries across five continents and by over 200 million people.
French is the third most common language on the Internet. Connect with pen pals, visit foreign websites and find student exchange opportunities.
Get a head start on learning other Romance languages like Spanish, Italian, Portuguese and Romanian.
French is a melodious and romantic language with a relatively quick learning curve.
Develop critical, creative thinking and problem solving skills. French also provides the base for more than 50% of the modern English vocabulary, which improves performance on standardized tests.
Open the doors to art, music, fashion, food, architecture and literature.
Discover a new appreciation for other cultures in countries that speak French like: France, Canada, Belgium, Switzerland, Monaco and many African nations.
Use French to pursue studies in Francophone countries.
Promote language diversity throughout the world.
Be more competitive in the national and international job market in disciplines like business, medicine, aviation, law, transportation technologies, global/international distribution and luxury goods.
French is the official working language of the UN, NATO, UNESCO, the International Olympic Committee, the European Union, the International Red Cross and much more!
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January 21st, 2010
Spanish is spoken by more than 500 million people worldwide, which is reason enough to learn the language. But it’s even more compelling when you realize that about half of the population in the Western Hemisphere speaks Spanish, making it the primary language for as many people as English in this region of the world.
In addition to in the US, Spanish is also gaining importance in Europe, where it is quickly becoming the foreign language of choice after English.
By learning Spanish fluently you can often understand enough Italian and French to get by in communicating with people who speak those languages.
Spanish can open the door to many millions of other people who speak one of the other Romance languages. It can enable you to become fluent in those languages in much less time than it would take somebody who is learning their first Romance language, because of the similarities in grammar and vocabulary.
The World Speaking Spanish
At the end of the 19th century, 60 million people were Spanish speakers. Today, nearly 500 million people across the world speak Spanish!
Spanish is the mother tongue of approximately 350 million people in 21 countries (Mexico: 95 million, Spain: 40 million, Argentina: 38 million, Colombia: 35 million…).
Spanish is the second most used language in international communication.
Spanish is one of the six official languages of the United Nations.
In 1999, Spanish had approximately the same number of native speakers as English (leading English slightly 332 million people to 322 million people).
If you include the number of people who are fluent in Spanish as a second language, the total number of Spanish speakers in the world will soon reach 500 million people.
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January 21st, 2010
UK Researchers from University College London studied the brains of 105 people – 80 of whom were bilingual. They found learning other languages altered grey matter – the area of the brain which processes information – in the same way exercise builds muscles.
People who learned a second language at a younger age were also more likely to have more advanced grey matter than those who learned later, the team said.
Scientists already know the brain has the ability to change its structure as a result of stimulation – an effect known as plasticity – but this research demonstrates how learning languages develops it.
It means that older learners won’t be as fluent as people who learned earlier in life
The team took scans of 25 Britons who did not speak a second language, 25 people who had learned another European language before the age of five and 33 bilinguals who had learned a second language between 10 and 15 years old.
The scans revealed the density of the grey matter in the left inferior parietal cortex of the brain was greater in bilinguals than in those without a second language.
The effect was particularly noticeable in the “early” bilinguals, the findings published in the journal Nature revealed.
The findings were also replicated in a study of 22 native Italian speakers who had learned English as a second language between the ages of two and 34. Lead researcher Andrea Mechelli, of the Institute of Neurology at UCL, said the findings explained why younger people found it easier to learn second languages.
“It means that older learners won’t be as fluent as people who learned earlier in life.
“They won’t be as good as early bilinguals who learned, for example, before the age of five or before the age of 10.”
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January 21st, 2010
There is considerable debate in the United States today over the issue of bilingualism and how it affects children’s general cognitive abilities and also chances for success in school.
What is clear, however, is the ability of young children to learn more than one language, beginning right at birth, when they are exposed to multiple language in consistent and meaningful ways.
The advantages to learning two or more languages include certain cognitive gains in which children seem to have a greater communicative depth that may boost thinking skills.
There is also a cultural advantage, as language and culture cannot be separated. Therefore, children are better equipped to be sensitive to differences in others, respond to different ways of social interactions, and carry traditional knowledge that is uniquely part of a particular culture.
In children as young as 3, it is not unusual for their speaking vocabulary to be smaller in each language than the speaking vocabulary of English-only children. This difference minimizes by age 6 and some research shows that by this time, children who speak more than one language actually have larger vocabularies in both languages than their English-only counterparts.
It is thought that children are using these incredibly important first years to process both languages and their receptive-language skills will pace ahead of the expressive. When you hear your child repeating words or phrases after you, it is part of that cognitive processing she is engaged in.
It would not, under normal circumstances, indicate any kind of autism. Autism is unrelated to the learning of multiple languages.
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January 12th, 2010
Decision: Choose a language that will be practical for your child to use in his/her future.If you’re moving to Europe due to job relocation, then choosing Mandarin might not be the wisest choice. Make the decision based on the future of your child.
Timing: Introduce the new language as early as possible in the life of your child. It’s strongly recommended that you start as early as age one. This will allow your child to achieve a native-level mastery of the language acquired.
Method: Choose a method of introducing the target language in a format that your child will embrace. Children learn best when the method goes in hand with their learning style (auditory, visual, kinesthetic). Select a multi-sensory approach as this will cater to the various learning styles, including your child’s very own.
Maintenance: Daily exposure is the key to learning a new language. Once a week classes are very helpful. Yet, repetition on a daily basis, if even for a few minutes at a time here and there throughout the day, will truly link those neural pathways connections in the brain of your little one.
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