How To Learn Foreign Languages With Training Toys
Author: Owen Jones
Schools in English-speaking countries are infamously bad at teaching foreign languages. Or perhaps not bad, merely completely indifferent. Although anyone who wants to get on in the world has to speak English, times are a-changing and we are waking up to the fact that we are missing out on a great deal by not learning foreign languages.
As everyone knows, it is simpler to learn foreign languages while you are younger, so maybe it would be a good idea for parents to begin teaching their kids a foreign language at home, if they cannot rely on the state-run educational system to do it for them.
All well and good for parents of mixed marriages, I hear you saying, but what if both parents are native English speakers. Well, why not study the language as well at your child's pace? If you begin early enough, the child will still be learning English, so will learn the foreign language slowly anyway and you will easily be able to keep up.
Particularly as, being the teacher, you can control the pace of the education and you can slow it down to please yourself. The first thing to do is choose a language that you can hear spoken fairly often. Spanish, French and German are probably the best options. Take it from me, Russian and Chinese are not!
Spanish, French and German have plenty of words that come from the same ancestry as English words, so that makes it a bit easier as well. So, let's say, you choose French. Now you should look around for methods to teach (and learn) French.
One way to start is to buy some bilingual cards with pictures of everyday items like pets, household items, relatives, colours, foodstuffs, numbers and clothing. You could use three to five cards a day in a 15-20 minute lesson and once you have used a card, you could pin it on the wall and reread it every now and then.This will increase your vocabulary.
You will also have to buy some blank card, a grammar book, a dictionary and a simple reader in French. It is all very well having a large vocabulary of words, but you have to know some verbs to be able to string them together into sentences.
So, say you have both studied the words for 'mother' and 'cat', you could look up the word for 'look', copy it onto a piece of card and pin it between the pictures of mother and the cat. Then you have: "La mere regarde le chat" (mother is looking at the cat). You could repeat this with all the words that make sense until it sinks in.
'Teach Yourself ...' books are normally fairly decent at offering a structure for your schooling and the best ones have CD's of native speakers to help you get the accent right. Often the course work is mirrored on the CD chapter by chapter to make it even easier.
You can look on Amazon and pick up some CD's of easy French nursery rhymes and buy some good cartoon stories like Asterix the Gaul. The text is intended for children, so you will easily be able to follow it. They are fairly good as well and should hold both your kid's and your own attention for hours, but only do a chapter at a stretch.
In order to practice your new language, try prohibitting English at meal times or for one meal a day. This can become enjoyable and the whole family may become involved. You will be surprised how quickly you will learn enough to say what you want to
Owen Jones, the author of this piece, writes on a variety of subjects, but is now concerned with the Nerf n-Strike Stampede Blaster. If you would like to know more, please visit our website at Smart Toys for Kids.
As everyone knows, it is simpler to learn foreign languages while you are younger, so maybe it would be a good idea for parents to begin teaching their kids a foreign language at home, if they cannot rely on the state-run educational system to do it for them.
All well and good for parents of mixed marriages, I hear you saying, but what if both parents are native English speakers. Well, why not study the language as well at your child's pace? If you begin early enough, the child will still be learning English, so will learn the foreign language slowly anyway and you will easily be able to keep up.
Particularly as, being the teacher, you can control the pace of the education and you can slow it down to please yourself. The first thing to do is choose a language that you can hear spoken fairly often. Spanish, French and German are probably the best options. Take it from me, Russian and Chinese are not!
Spanish, French and German have plenty of words that come from the same ancestry as English words, so that makes it a bit easier as well. So, let's say, you choose French. Now you should look around for methods to teach (and learn) French.
One way to start is to buy some bilingual cards with pictures of everyday items like pets, household items, relatives, colours, foodstuffs, numbers and clothing. You could use three to five cards a day in a 15-20 minute lesson and once you have used a card, you could pin it on the wall and reread it every now and then.This will increase your vocabulary.
You will also have to buy some blank card, a grammar book, a dictionary and a simple reader in French. It is all very well having a large vocabulary of words, but you have to know some verbs to be able to string them together into sentences.
So, say you have both studied the words for 'mother' and 'cat', you could look up the word for 'look', copy it onto a piece of card and pin it between the pictures of mother and the cat. Then you have: "La mere regarde le chat" (mother is looking at the cat). You could repeat this with all the words that make sense until it sinks in.
'Teach Yourself ...' books are normally fairly decent at offering a structure for your schooling and the best ones have CD's of native speakers to help you get the accent right. Often the course work is mirrored on the CD chapter by chapter to make it even easier.
You can look on Amazon and pick up some CD's of easy French nursery rhymes and buy some good cartoon stories like Asterix the Gaul. The text is intended for children, so you will easily be able to follow it. They are fairly good as well and should hold both your kid's and your own attention for hours, but only do a chapter at a stretch.
In order to practice your new language, try prohibitting English at meal times or for one meal a day. This can become enjoyable and the whole family may become involved. You will be surprised how quickly you will learn enough to say what you want to
Owen Jones, the author of this piece, writes on a variety of subjects, but is now concerned with the Nerf n-Strike Stampede Blaster. If you would like to know more, please visit our website at Smart Toys for Kids.
Article Source: http://www.articlealley.com/http://owenjones.articlealley.com/how-to-learn-foreign-languages-with-training-toys-2393611.html
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foreign languages,
homeschooling,
parenting,
education,
kids
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