5ways to help your children learn a foreign language quickly
With the beginning of the new school year in many Arab countries, parents often worry about their children learning a new language in schools, especially English or French, and about the methods that can be followed at home and education in order to help children in the early stages to acquire a second language beside their own Mother, in order to assist them in their future academic and professional life.
Children have a greater ability than adults to learn and acquire more than one language, so that they are competent in it as if it were his command language. Therefore, it is important to teach children languages early
A child is capable of acquiring more than one language, so that he possesses competence in it just like the mother tongue, and he continues to have the ability to do so until the age of twelve or thirteen, which is the “critical” age for language acquisition as is known to linguists. This is a great opportunity for parents to focus their efforts on helping the child to "acquire" the language naturally, rather than just learning it in later stages of life.
Having more than one language has many benefits and positive effects on the child, from a cognitive and emotional point of view, and from a practical and professional point of view as well in the future. Here, we offer you five effective ways to help children learn and acquire a foreign language.
1. Ensure early exposure to language
If the child is under the age of 12, this is a golden opportunity to be seized by exposing him to a new language and, if possible, providing an "immersive experience" with this language. You must start now, without delay, to ensure that the child acquires the language naturally, and speaks it as if it were a mother tongue.
Make sure you expose your children to new languages as early as 12 years old
There is, as we mentioned, a “critical period” for language acquisition, after which a person’s ability to acquire language naturally diminishes, and the new language he learns after this age remains a “foreign” language. Starting with a child at an early age to learn language is the easiest and most effective way, before the child grows up and the brain's ability to acquire language declines.
2. Start by teaching the basics
Even if you are not very familiar with the second language you want your son or daughter to learn, you should make sure that you start with the basics. Simply listening to a second language can help children develop the ability to handle and understand it at later stages as they begin to learn it.
Numbers and colors can be taught to a young child, by alerting the child to the names of the colors or practicing counting together from time to time, or naming the animals and simple things around him. These simple practices, if continued systematically, can greatly help the child to deal with language and develop the ability to acquire it.
There is no doubt that one of the most interesting and simple ways to get the child familiar with the new language is to listen to the music and songs in it. By playing the songs in the foreign language that you want your child to learn, it can develop familiarity with it, making the child automatically repeat it on his tongue whenever you put it in the house or the car.
Remember that children learn best when the learning experience is fun. Use any game with the child and try, if you have knowledge of the language, to combine play with learning, and you will find amazing results in a short time.
3. Take advantage of foreign language resources for children
When you teach your child a foreign language, especially one of the major languages such as English, French or Spanish, you will find a huge amount of resources available on the Internet and in the market to teach the child the language.
You can hire a language teacher to reinforce your child's new language
By doing a simple search online, you can find many websites or smartphone apps that are specifically designed to help children learn a new language. Through these sites or applications, you can take advantage of the opportunity to give the child time in front of the screen or mobile phone to have fun and learn the language at the same time.
4. Use a teacher or language institute
All of these previous steps do not substitute at a certain stage for a formal, systematic language education. If you want to invest in your child's future, you might consider hiring a tutor who speaks the language the child will be learning, or sending him to a language institute.
Foreign countries are usually keen to provide opportunities to learn the language through their cultural centers linked to their cultural consulates, and this means an opportunity to learn the language from professionals and native speakers of the language.
5. Look for opportunities to practice a foreign language
After you send the child to a private language institute or hire a private tutor, there remains the need to find opportunities that help the child practice what he has learned. If you are fluent in the language, you can make sure to practice it with him, or look for places where the child can listen to and practice the language he has learned.
If you want to invest in your child's future, you may want to consider hiring a tutor who speaks the language the child will be learning.
The best way, of course, is to travel if this is possible and the conditions that help that are available. It is also often possible to communicate with the cultural centers of the foreign community or its schools, and to consider the possibility of communicating with the child in the available environment there.
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