The hardest task, most parents are faced with today, is to raise their children to be citizens of a global world. Despite the fact that they need to be aware of their background and traditional values, children of today need a wider view of cultures and ethnicity. Moreover, global awareness is highlighted by educational experts to be one of the most important skills of the successful and well-rounded adults of tomorrow.
Mainly what made the world a global village is the easy and fast communication enabled by the digital world and the internet. This has broadened the horizons for children that are skilled in communication. Well, the main tool of communication being language, children raised to be bilingual, and multilingual are making their way through life and education easily.
The practice of raising a bilingual child has always persisted in bilingual families, however, today even monolingual parents that are, or aren’t fluent in any foreign language, allow their children to become fluent in a second language at an early age. Whether you are looking to enhance their learning with 11 plus tutoring and helping them prepare for high school or just want to give them a cutting edge above other kids, teaching your kids a second language is a great start in life.
Children with English as their mother tongue are enjoying the privilege of their native language being the lingua franca of today. But is this actually an advantage? While many children around the world speak two or more languages, children that are native in English stay behind. Luckily, it’s easier than ever for a parent to teach and help a child learn a foreign language using free and cheap online resources. Therefore, why not give your child a chance to speak the second most popular language in the world? With Live Lingua Chinese lessons, your child will enjoy a brighter future.
Let’s take a look at the best resources a parent can find today to help its children become fluent in foreign languages.
Online Language Learning Platform
Online learning platforms are proven to be way more efficient than traditional teaching in the classroom form, especially when it comes to languages. There are platforms that offer one on one tutoring from accredited TEFL teachers that can adjust to your child’s learning needs and pace, thus giving fast results. The best part is, a parent can have an overview of the learning process and get included.
Language is all about communication. For that matter, parents often decide to learn or improve their foreign language skills and teach their children through communications. Moreover, using an online platform is great in all cases. Either a parent wants to learn and teach its child, to learn together with its child from different materials (videos, ebooks, quizzes), or just have an overview and encourage the child during the learning process, different learning platforms adjust to different needs.
Furthermore, some online platforms offer downloadable written material, e-books, videos and quizzes for different prices. All you need to do is spend some time researching and find what best suits yours and your child’s needs in the learning process.
Language Learning Apps
Apps are available for desktop, tablets and phones and they offer great help in the process of learning a new language. Language learning apps like flashcards, phrasebooks and quizzes are engaging and offer serious value for the learning process.
If you deal with younger children, you can present the app as a game. Apps for children have an interesting and colourful user interface. Moreover, as it is established, children learn more efficiently while having fun, so it’s all about interpretation.
Audiobooks and Video Series
Unless you live in a community where the targeted language is spoken, your child wouldn’t hear many people speaking the language. Therefore, audiobooks are important so you can expose the child to a variety of native speakers. To make the best use of audiobooks, you can play a book in the car and of course during playtime. While your child paints and plays with toys and puzzles, the brain will soak the pronunciation and gain great language speaking skills.
Audiobooks that come as a picture book for phone or tablet are also great, but if you have limited screen time for your children you can always choose to just play the story.
Children find video series for language learning purposes very interesting. As they are usually adapted for a certain age they are very effective. They feature a lot of repetitions which is great for learning and remembering vocabulary and many common phrases used in the particular language. Video series that use both the foreign and native languages for translation give fast results.
Native Materials – Books, Movies, Music
Technology is not always the answer, however, the truth is you can make use of it for acquiring the basics fast. After your child has learned vocabulary, common phrases, and starts to comprehend sentences in the targeted language, it is ready to start reading books. Reading a book that is completely in a foreign language will help the child’s progress in writing and reading skills. Native books can be found in libraries, book stores and of course in online stores.
People take satisfaction from recognition. Once your child is recognising the foreign language and understands even the basics, it can easily be interested in watching a movie or listening to a song. Children’s brains are faster in grasping meanings and words so even passive perception of the language will help enhance the foreign language skills in your child.