How do English speaking parents teach baby to learn a second language?

Early Learning Teaching Your Child - Signing, Speaking, Languages
1

We all know that language is best taught from young. The younger you start the better the outcome is.

There were a few babies that I taught last year who had absolutely no Chinese (a second language), neither the farther or the mother came from any of the Chinese backgrounds. So how could the English speaking parent teach the baby, say, Chinese? How did we do it in our playroom on the weekly bases?

Well, you can spend lots of money buying all sorts of learning materials or engaging a professional Chinese language teacher, or hiring a Chinese speaking nanny for their services. These are all high cost ways of helping your baby to be on the path of a second language learning.

The best would be for a bilingual parent to speak to your child your home language. unfortunately, this is not always possible for us all. Most of us have only got one language.

There were about 15 babies all together since my first Mandarin baby class in July, 08. These babies are ranging from 24 to 13 months old now. 99% of them talked very early, either starting with Chinese words or English. Once they are able to talk, their language ability just matured daily. They are much happier to be around new members of the community and they are much more friendly to other toddlers. They are so confident at being with other adults/mums. Few months ago, I was telling a group of 8 toddlers (a few of them from our baby class last year) a story, suddenly, I realize that most of them are sitting with someone else’s mum, not their own. But they were all so involved at the story that I was giving. I wish I had a camera to capture this moment, but I soon realized that this happens all the time with this particular group of baby → toddler learners.

Compare this group of toddlers to the other groups of toddlers that I have, which none of them were with us from babyhood, you can see the difference and teachers actually feel that it is harder to teach these groups to the one baby → toddler group and I often have to help the other groups of new toddlers.

This actually shows us that the new research finds Bilingual babies developing the ability of acceptance to others (people, language, cultural, foods,) more easily than Monolingual babies.

For this reason alone, we need to find ways to help our little babies and toddlers to learn a second language as soon as we can.

Low costs ways of helping your baby/toddler/preschooler to learn a second language are:

  1. Organize visits and home plays with friends or community members that speaking the particular language that you would like your child to learn.
  2. Join local/starting your own bilingual learning playgroup that is community minded and focus on children’s language learning and aiming at providing the best outcome for families.
  3. Using free on-line learning materials, and learn it with your child.
  4. Install the cable TV system that provides 24/7 language access of programs that you can choose particular time frame to watch the TV show with your child. I don’t suggest that you use TV as baby sitter while you get other house chores done. As some of the contents of the show may be ok to the culture background but not acceptable to you.
  5. Songs is the best way of helping your child to learn a new language. Song CDs in the car, at home, in the playroom.
  6. Printable flashcards, place them all over your house. Visual stimulation is so important to those little brain’s development. Fill your house up with them your child will soon learn making connections with what he sees and what it means.
  7. Make a space available to encourage your toddler to draw and express himself on the wall, whiteboard, if possible. Don’t forget that gross motor skill development is another vital important part of language learning.
  8. Most importantly, don’t forget to bring fun into the learning. Children won’t want to learn or participate if there is no fun. So make it fun for them to do any activities that’s the aid to their learning.

Got to catch up some sleep before 8am as I have 6 classes tomorrow and will only finish at 5pm every Saturday, school terms.

Hope all above is helping and encouraging enough to get you start at helping your child to learn a second language.

Visit my website for more information regarding our classes for babies, toddlers, kinder and early primary children:
http://www.kimmba.com.au

2

I like the observation that multilingual-learning babies are able to embrace differences in people and cultures. Makes sense to try teaching other languages even when the parent is only familiar with their native language–by whatever method possible.

3

We watch Dora and Go Diego, I also use hooked on spanish, and some websites that I listed on here today.

4

There is a wonderful website and the product is excellent for someone wants to learn Chinese. I am using it for all my Chinese classes right through all 7 locations in Melbourne. It is http://www.betterchinese.com

This product is one of the bests and the easiest for a Non Chinese speaking parents to learn Chinese with your child. It is suitable from birth to high school. They produced both simplified and traditional Chinese characters so that parents are free to choose either one or the written forms you would like your child to learn Chinese.

What I have done in the past few years was collecting all orders from my parents and place the order together so that parents can share all the added costs of express international delivery and insurance and packaging charges and so on. So it cost parents ranging from $80 to $95 per set of 36 books and 1 cd, it depends on the exchange rate.

Tobias8, that’s right, the friendliness and the acceptances to others make bilingual babies all that much more pleasurable to be with. Can you imaging if we could encourage at least 1/4 of the Australian population to be at least bilingual (multilingual is even better), the violence of the society would be reduced dramatically.

From the personnel and social point of views, bilingual is the way to go. :slight_smile:

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I totally agree that exposure to a second, third, forth language - the more the merrier - stimulates children’s brain development. They love hearing new sounds, making new sounds and playing with language and new noises. Unless they have some kind of cognitive disorder, and possibly even then, new languages are a great stimulus for language development in children.

I also agree with the simple methods Marisha lists in her post above. Especially making contact with people who speak a different language and organising times to get together for play and social interaction. I think it is such an important part of children’s socialisation and development.

My son communicates with his dad in Arabic and he attends Kimmba’s Mandarin playgroup once a week. I have noticed that his language development (in English) has been much faster than his peers who have no interaction with other languages. Also his cognitive processes seem to be more advanced too. By maybe that’s just me being completely biased!

I think many people thought I was crazy going to a bilingual playgroup with my son aged 2. It was great meeting other parents there who realise the importance of kids starting to learn languages at an early age. There’s a ridiculous mindset in the Australian community that says children don’t need to start learning another language until they’re in highschool. Hence, most Australian’s skills in languages are getting worse and worse as each year passes.

Thanks again Marisha for your excellent advice and ideas to help our kids become future multilinguals!

6

A lot of kids dvds these days are able to be played in multiple languages. (Dora, barbie, diego, Tarzan etc) Even old stories now on dvd, like Chitty Chitty bang bang. And there are subtitles you can switch on in other languages, or even english, to teach reading if you speak that language, or to translate if you dont.

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Hi kimmba,

I went to the site you recommended. Looks interesting. How do you think its products compares with the Wink to Learn series. Wink to Learn is what I’m currently using for my 13 month old and he seems to enjoy it. I’m open to supplementing it, however, with other good products.

Thanks.

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Hi tobias8, can you please give me the website so that I can look up for you and let you know soon?

I forgot to let parents know our You Tube short video link so you may be able to do the same and help your baby at home.

The link is: http://www.youtube.com/user/kimmbabilingual

More than welcome to leave your common and suggestions. I have more to post but don’t have time at the moment. If more of you would like to view different activities of what we do, then I will get it done soon.

Cheers,
Marisha

9

We are teaching our son Spanish as his second language. I started from when he was a baby playing spanish music. When he was 21 months old, I needed to have a babysitter for him 2 hours a day, so now he goes to a daycare at a neighbors house, she used to be a spanish teacher in Peru and she’s done a fantastic job speaking to him in spanish and teaching him the language. He is constantly learning new words and understanding what she says. I had planned on putting him into an expensive spanish immersion preschool (and am still keeping the option open) but I think he is learning the language just as well in his “daycare” which I choose to call his Spanish class. This lady also teaches hispanic kids in the area reading, spelling, etc in Spanish since in school they are learning those things in English. I think it’s awesome! I also plan on sending him to a spanish/english immersion elementary school. Half the day is spent learning in English, the other half in Spanish. So. I think it’s working for us, even though neither my husband nor I speak Spanish. We also have stopped turning on the disney channel and will now put on the Spanish cartoons like Plaza Sesamo (sesame street). My Son absolutely LOVES these cartoons and will watch them with such intense interest, if he hears anyone speaking spanish in the store or anywhere his head whips around and he stares at them. I often wonder if he’s is just recognizing the language or if he is understanding what they say. They always notice that he is watching intently and will usually say hi to him. I can’t wait for the day that he will greet them back in Spanish!! sooo fun and exciting!

10

LDSMum,
That’s really excellent that you’ve having someone professional in both child care and providing the Spanish language to your son. I do the same myself. My 18 months old toddler is cared for by a Chinese nanny who accompanies her to Chinese toddler playgroups right through the week and Spanish playgroup on Saturdays. My daughter has more than 300 words in Chinese and she is able to use 4 to 5 words phases/sentences in Chinese, talking to my husband in English and learns Spanish since birth. She is able to repeat after you in these 3 languages no problem. I am working from home so I am able to be with her and knowing how her daily routine is like. I am very lucky to be able to do so.

Her groups of toddler friends are all looking forward to seeing her each week and she is able to call a few toddlers names when she sees them. She loves to play with all of them. She is a very sociable 18 months old. Before I had a nanny, I used to carry her in the hug-a-bub and teach at the same time as I run bilingual playgroups at 6 locations in the beginning of this year. To have a Chinese speaking nanny 6 days a week is really the best thing that I could provide for her (I am working 6 days a week). With the added bonus of Chinese toddler playgroups I run through out the week, I see so many Australian families are enjoying to bring their little tots out and learn to speak a second language.

Hope there would be more and more parents like us, actively teaching babies to learn a second language. That is the best thing we can do, to get them start any language early.

11

has anyone used Bilingual tots?