As parents, we all want our children to succeed and seize every possible
opportunity that is presented to them. And English is so important in today's world.
So, many parents are curious about how to teach their children English.
In this video, I'll share my best tips for teaching English to kids, most of which
are based on what I have in store for my own two sons.
Lots of people ask me how to teach their children English
and actually, a few months ago, my oldest son told me he would love to start learning English.
And you can imagine how joyful I was when I heard that.
I'll use English as a personal example,
but the tips I'm going to talk about can be used for any foreign language.
The first tip I usually give is to remember that we're dealing with children.
Therefore, always keep it fun!
The biggest mistake you can make is to force them to study or work on boring activities.
This could make them develop negative feelings about English and
create an obstacle rather than an ally.
Let me give you some examples of things you could do:
Watch English movies or cartoons with your children.
Buy them some comics in English with their favorite characters.
Use interactive activities and modern tools, like mobile apps and web platforms.
And, generally speaking, encourage your kids to turn any activity they love into an opportunity
to practice and create a strong emotional bond with the language.
No matter what your own proficiency is like, you can teach your children some English.
Don't worry if you lack vocabulary, make mistakes or have bad pronunciation.
Your goal isn't to be their primary teacher, but make them excited about practicing
and, again, build a strong emotional bond with the language.
They love you, so they will love communicating with you in any language.
You could decide to speak English together while eating or read an English story
before bed every night. You might also choose to dedicate one or
more hours of your weekend to practice English together. And I know that it will
be weird at the beginning, but we're creatures of habit so I can assure you
that after a while it will become more than natural. And actually, they will
think of speaking another language with you like a game.
Speaking of games, we recently recorded a video in which we say that gamification can be a bad thing
if your only purpose is to have fun. But as a matter of fact, for children, making
the learning process more like a game, or incorporating actual games into the
learning process, can be the key to learning faster. For example: my son loves
board games, so now that I'm really satisfied with the level he has reached
in the three languages he's learning, I'm starting to play board games in English with him.
I owe that to another polyglot of our team, Samuel,
who decided to play the game UNO with his children in Spanish and
this has proved a very good way to teach another language to his children.
If your child loves video games, for example, try playing with them. They will never get
bored doing something they love, even if it's in another language.
In another video, I talked about the TPRS method, which stands for "Teaching
Proficiency Through Reading and Storytelling." This method should not be
confused with the TPR method, which stands for "Total Physical Response,"
and it's what I'll talk about now. The idea is that we can memorize things
more easily when we associate them with movement. Movement is one of the things
many memory experts use to remember things better.
So how exactly does this method work?
When you speak English with your children, try to act out what you say,
and emphasize your words with movement. This is really easy for us Italians,
because we usually use a lot of gestures...
For example: if you are talking about eating, then mimic the act of eating.
If you say "I'd love to sleep," "I'd like to sleep," use this motion as you say.
Check out the article below for more ideas and suggestions.
So let me sum up my tips for teaching English to your children:
Keep it fun, learn together, turn the learning process into game
and try out the TPR method.
If you need more inspiration and ideas, let me give you a bonus tip:
a friend of mine uses paper flashcards to learn vocab with his son.
You could do the same, and even create your own flashcards.
I'm planning to do the same with my son, since he's only four years old
and I'd like to keep him away from screens for another couple of years.
If you have teenagers, listening to and working your way through an addictive story,
like MosaSeries, can be a great activity to do together.
That's all for today.
I wish you and your children the very best in your English learning endeavors.
Take care!
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