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Is it possible to teach yourself a language from home?

A question for families: What steps do you take to teach your children foreign languages? Do you have activities at home that reinforces language learning or do you rely on school?

  • Answer:

    The best way to introduce a child to a foreign language is through immersion, if you're lucky enough to be a bilingual family, seize this opportunity to expose your kid to your native tongue by Singing Songs and Playing Games etc. One thing that is crucial for success in teaching a child anything is HAVING FUN with it. Assuming the foreign language is Chinese, here are my suggestions: Listen and chant Kids really tune in to music, they may not understand the songs, but just hearing a different language will help kids recognize sounds and phrases later in life. So download some children's songs to your iPod. Watch Chinese cartoons Educational DVDs and computer programs are a good resource too. Watch them with your kid and repeat some words or phrases, and your kid will pick up some words and become familiar with the unique sounds of that language. Read ChinesePictureBook   Check out your local library for popular children's http://www.parents.com/shop/books-c4731.html in Chinese, slide your finger under the words as you read. Speak as much as possible Keep speaking Chinese several times during the day. For example, ask questions about the videos or books in Chinese, play games with dolls and you speak for your doll only in Chinese, to see if your kid understands everything your character asks. But if you happen to not know another language, you may try to learn and teach your child at the same time.  Or you might hire a babysitter who's fluent in another tongue (Chinese, for example). Don't worry about confusing a pre-talker by introducing foreign words at the same time as she's learning to speak her primary language. One of my students from Spain now lives in Beijing, her son is 3 years old, she hired babysitter (a native Chinese) one year ago. Now her son communicates with the babysitter in Chinese quite well.

Rita Zhang at Quora Visit the source

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I'll speak for myself, not as a parent. I learned English through immersion when I was 5 going on 6 and we were living in an English-only environment. I was speaking my mother tongue with an English accent two years later. I learned Spanish the same way 25 years later, by doing a language immersion program in Mexico. Forget about relying on school unless the kids go to a school with an immersion program (e.g. all classes taught in the foreign language at least 50% of the time). I could see from the other students in my mandatory English classes that 1-2 hours a week didn't work that well for them. As far as activities are concerned, watching TV/videos and reading in the foreign language as often as possible helped me a lot.

Viviane Blais

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