Hi everyone, I’d like to know how many of you are teaching your baby a second language. I started talking to my child in English (my second language) when he was fourteen months old, I suppose I could have started earlier but before that I didn’t feel my baby prepared and I thought he would have got confused with the two languages (English and Spanish). In fact, now I see the one not prepared was me, because he has gotten used to the English language very quickly. He understands me quite well when I talk to him in English, what I try to do everyday at any time along the day.
For this, I encourage to you all, if you can speak a second language, to talk to your children some time everyday when possible.
Yup,
I am teaching my son English as a second language, for the following reasons:
-internet
-globalization
-oficial business language
-oficial language in the EU
Research have shown that children will be fluent in both languages, provided that they get exposed to the second one systematically at least 30% of the time.
I am attaching some info on the subject. I found this video very enlightening:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOxBc-LdrKI
KL, please share your experience. I saw in the video that your daughter was also reading your native language slides. How did you go about it?
Hi Fileneviana. Thank you for the video. It’s great to meet someone who also teach a second language, I suppose it is English , isn’t it? I want to make you some questions: When did you start talking to your child in English? and How is it going? How do you do that? I tell you what I do: I talk to my son in English as if we were playing. I ask him whether he wants English and he always answers “yes” so I start talking to him in English and explainig things in English. He knows all the home things both in Spanish and English. He is not very good at talking he doesn’t talk much but it is not needed because I understand his body language quite well. Maybe it is my fault because I don’t force him to talk that much. My experience with the flashcards is not very good. My son doesn’t seem much interested in them but I continue showing them to him. Only some times takes he the flashcards and tries to tell me what they say.
Same way I went about teaching her English - with flash cards (print outs and LR)! Now that her English is quite proficient, we are spending more and more time at home speaking to her in Chinese. Like when we first started to get her to talk more, the key is to use the times when she wants something from you (eg, food, or to carry her, etc.) to make her make the request in that second language. always works!
I am beginning to teach my daughter Spanish, she is 25 months old. she has heard spanish her wholelife from CD DVDs and friends. I don’t speak spanish so we will be learning together although I know that she will learn faster than I will.
Tania,
you should get your little one of the bilingual toys on the market. I hear they are really helpful and it will add to your efforts.
we have some and she has memorized everything they say, I don’t know if it is a problem that she says the word in spanish then english ex. Mommy mi taza… Mommy my cup. She doesn’t do it when she starts off in english
my daughter is learning both (english and spanish) as well. i speak to her in spanish and my husband in english, watches tv in both languagues…she just turned 2 and is speaking a lot more that she used to. i spend from 2 to 3 hours everyday teaching her words, the colours, animals, etc…in both laguagues. and she is doing great!. everyday she says a new word. the dr says that by the age of 3 she will be speaking both and fluently.
Hi Mamademika,
my congratulations to you . You and your girl are doing great
I want my son to learn Japanese in addition to English (English is my native language). In the evening we read Japanese books and English books. A couple times a week, we get together with a mother from the neighborhood, and we sing songs and play with our babies in two languages. I understand that age 6mo-1yr is a crucial time for sound recognition, so am trying to expose him early.
we are trying to teach muse (2) three languages
English, Spanish and French
we use the teach your baby french and teach your baby Spanish cds
(very cheap on amazon.com)
they are 30 minutes each and teach colors, numbers up to ten, animals and basic words and phrases
she loves listening to them and is learning a lot
we also sing to her in french and spanish
and are now making little reader categories in the three languages
my question is both me and my husbands first language is english
so that is what she hears most of the day 
i want her to hear more conversational spanish and french
does anyone know of any good dvds or cds for kids to help teach other languages?
or what other methods are people using to teach?
i would love to have more input for her
thanks
tatianna
There are several other threads in early learning relating to teaching other languages.