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How to teach a child a foreign language. Learning a child of foreign languages

Every parent wants the best for their child. And many adults believe that children definitely need to learn foreign languages - this will bring great benefits. Moreover, some parents are simply obsessed with the idea of starting training as early as possible. In this article, we will tell you from what age, where and how to start teaching your child English, as well as how to do it right at home.

At what age should a child be taught English?

When is the best time to start teaching your child English? To put it bluntly, there is no exact answer to this question. Each child is individual, so it is almost impossible to designate a “universal age” for starting education. We will look at two options, their pros and cons. In addition, you will see the expert opinions of our teachers on this issue, they are based on their personal experience, because these teachers are mothers themselves. You know your child well, so you can decide which of these options is right for you.

Theory number 1. The child should be taught English as early as possible

Adherents of this theory say that children from birth to 5-6 years old easily learn any language. They learn their native language in a natural way, without any schools, so they can learn English in the same way.

Advantages of this approach:

Child learns language unconsciously
Parents believe that kids learn English as a native language, that is, they simply listen passively, and then reproduce words and phrases in their own speech. By the age of 7, any child is fluent in Russian, despite the fact that he does not understand what “subject”, “noun”, “present tense”, etc. no rules.
The kid is not afraid to speak
A child at this age is less afraid of making a mistake than an adult, so children are more courageous in using the language they are learning. Babies do not have a language barrier, because they are more direct and less clamped than adults. They just say what they want, regardless of their pronunciation or mistakes in speech. Adults correct these mistakes, and gradually the child gets used to speaking in correct sentences.
Children have a good memory
There is a theory that by the age of 5, everyone has above average language abilities because children memorize words and phrases faster. They, like parrots, repeat everything they hear, and literally grasp new words for themselves on the fly. Remember, probably, every adult had such an embarrassment: you say some not very good word in front of a child, and he (well, as luck would have it!) instantly remembers it and begins to use it in his speech. If, instead of bad words in Russian, a child is offered good ones in English, he will remember them just as quickly.
It is easier for the child to develop good pronunciation
There is also an opinion that it is easier for a child to learn to pronounce the sounds of English speech correctly, because the onomatopoeic abilities of children are at an increased level. A child quickly learns to pronounce all the sounds of his native language as an adult speaks. Similarly, he will learn to pronounce the sounds of English speech: quickly and correctly.

Drawbacks of this approach:

Need a language environment
Learning "naturally" is possible only if you create a suitable language environment or stay in it. That is, the child must hear English speech from others every day. This is possible if he lives abroad, one of the parents constantly speaks English or the child has an English-speaking nanny. Remember, in the XVIII-XIX centuries. in Russia, representatives of the high society knew French even better than Russian. And all because in those days it was customary to invite governesses and tutors from France.
The danger of rote learning
The kid still does not know his native language well, he pronounces sentences on the "machine", but does not understand how the words "work" with each other. In addition, many kids have a small vocabulary of the Russian language, and if a child does not understand what a “kite” or “lilac” is in their native language, then they will not understand it in English either. Mechanical memorization of English phrases is not the most effective method of learning a language. Think about it, maybe it's worth waiting until the child grows up and learns English consciously.
Difficulty creating the right mood
For a preschool child, the right attitude is important both at home and in the classroom, and creating it is not easy. So, the child learns by playing, so at home you will need to “play English”. In addition, you will need to find a teacher who will be able to teach the child through the game and instill in him a love for learning the language. This is not easy to do: not every teacher knows how to teach children, and some teachers even discourage learning foreign languages for a long time.
The risk of spoiling the pronunciation of Russian sounds
Some speech therapists believe that learning English sounds can cause poor pronunciation of Russians. That is, speech therapists do not recommend learning English until the child has a good pronunciation of the sounds of his native language.

The opinions of our teachers on the question "At what age is it better to teach English to a child?"

Experience as a teacher: 9 years

Experience with Englex: 4 years

I would say that a child can start learning English from birth, if mom and dad are of different nationalities and, accordingly, initially the family speaks two (and sometimes three) languages.

My daughter began to show interest in various videos with songs and rhymes in English from the age of 2.5 (naturally, it was I who chose and offered them for her). She immediately chose certain ones and then simply demanded to turn them on 20-30 times in a row. Just a couple of weeks later, I started singing them. At this age, children are able to absorb new words and pronunciation at an astonishing rate. But, naturally, the time came when she got tired of all her favorite videos in English, she became interested in cartoons in Russian, and the viewing time, of course, increased. And now, when she is already 5, I tried to turn on the same videos for her, she immediately recognized the picture, the motive and even sang excerpts, but she could no longer reproduce completely, as before. Which again confirms a well-known fact for everyone: without constant practice, the language is forgotten.

It seems to me that the earlier a child is at least simply introduced to a new language (and this is the task of parents initially), the easier it will be for him to learn it in the future. The desire of the child himself is also very important, parents need to catch the moment when the child himself becomes interested and asks. And do not try to impose at an early age what they are not interested in, because then the result will be negative.

As for the direct study of the language as an activity, then, probably, from the age of 3-4, children can be sent to courses, but always in a group, and not individually (this is my subjective opinion, of course). At the same time, it is worth weighing all the pros and cons very well, given the nature of the child, his readiness to learn and communicate with new peers and the teacher. The first experience is the most important!

Experience as a teacher: 8 years

Experience with Englex: 1 year

I can not say that I am an expert, but this topic is close to me. My first education was an elementary school teacher, specializing in English. In addition, my son is now 1 year and 9 months old, so the development of speech is an important topic for us.

You can start teaching a language from the cradle, because that's what happens in bilingual families. And the result is magnificent - the child speaks two languages, as if they were native. But this, of course, is an exceptional option. I chose “do no harm” as the most important principle for myself, that is:

not to torture the child and not cause negativity in relation to the language;
not to disturb the psyche and the process of speech development in the native language.

Therefore, until recently, the son did not come into contact with English in any special way. Only when my son was about one and a half and I was convinced that he was developed, sociable, cheerful and already speaking phrases in his native language, I allowed myself to add nursery rhymes, cartoons and songs in English to our “diet”. All this he still perceives very positively! This is from personal experience.

If we return to the general, then I would advise parents, in addition to the principle “do no harm”, to find an opportunity for the child to come into contact with the language in approximately the same way as it happens with the native, that is, at first passively and naturally. Up to 6-8 years old, I would recommend only counting rhymes, songs, cartoons and games with parents or in language clubs. It is also important to remember that the pronunciation in these audio and video or the teacher must be at the level. Otherwise, it will be extremely difficult to correct the memorized! Naturally, there can be no question of any writing and grammar with such crumbs.

When can one begin to teach a child a language consciously, albeit fun, but still systematically and with some kind of analytical techniques? - an individual question. There are children who are more assiduous and less assiduous, someone begins to talk at the age of one and a half, and someone at three is laconic. There are many nuances, and first of all, parents themselves need to carefully assess what their child is now ready for.

Thus, teaching a child English from infancy is worth it if:

You live or are going to live in an English-speaking country, and the child simply needs to know the language to communicate with others.
At home, someone constantly speaks English: one of the parents, grandmother, nanny. In this case, the child will also realize why he needs to learn something - to talk with this person.
You know how to unobtrusively and interestingly present knowledge to the baby without harm to your native language or you have found a tutor who knows how to do this.

Theory number 2. The child should be taught English no earlier than from the age of 7

Adherents of this opinion believe that foreign languages should be taught at a conscious age, and not torment the baby with words incomprehensible to him. Supporters of learning from the age of 7 agree that a child up to 5-6 years old easily learns the language that he constantly hears, that is, Russian. If the child is not in an English-speaking country or his parents do not speak English as often as they do Russian, then a foreign language will not be able to learn “on its own”, so there is no point in learning it before 7-8 years.

Advantages of this approach:

The child gets used to learning
At the age of 7 and older, the child is already getting used to the regime, because he goes to school. Children become more organized and able to study, do homework, listen to the teacher, etc.
The child is already fluent in his native language
School-age children have a wide vocabulary and are fluent in Russian. For example, a child understands that when meeting, one must greet, introduce himself, ask a stranger to introduce himself, so such phrases in English will not raise questions for him. In addition, the child knows a lot of Russian words, so these words in English will be clear to him.
The child usually has a pronunciation
By the age of 7, the child will already have formed the pronunciation of the sounds of his native language, so he will not confuse them with English sounds. Moreover, at this age, the child still has good phonemic abilities, so he can quickly learn how to pronounce the sounds of foreign speech correctly.
Children are easier to motivate
At this age, children are already acquiring their first hobbies and interests, so you can offer your child an exciting “bonus system” for which he will learn the language. In addition, at this age, you can already find advantages for your child in learning English: the ability to watch cartoons in the original, read interesting fairy tales and stories, play online games in English, etc. Find something that will captivate your child. child, and you do not have to drag him to the next English class by force.
There are many courses for children
Finding courses for children from 7 years old will be quite simple: they are already used to focusing on the subject being studied, again, the child has interests, the teacher can build lessons based on them. With children under 7 years old, it is a little more difficult: it is not easy to attract and hold the attention of a small child, it is even more difficult to get him to do something consciously. Finding the right approach to teaching a baby is very difficult, not every teacher will be able to do this, so you can spend a lot of time looking for the “right” teacher.
It is easy for a child to overcome the language barrier
Children at this age are not afraid to make mistakes, they willingly carry on a dialogue with the teacher, they do not think about the accent. That is, at 7-8 years old it is not at all too late to start learning a foreign language - you will have time to prevent the appearance of a language barrier.

Drawbacks of this approach:

Difficulty remembering new words
Compared to toddlers, children over the age of 7 have a slightly more difficult time memorizing new words. On the other hand, at this age the child learns everything consciously, that is, he understands well what this or that word means and how it can be used.
Less time to learn a language
Some students are loaded with large amounts of homework, so there is very little time left for English. However, you can also find a way out of this situation: enroll your child in courses where they give very little homework, and the training takes place in a playful way - so your child will take a break from school.

The opinions of our teachers on the question "At what age should a child be taught English?"

Experience as a teacher: 9 years

Experience with Englex: 2 years

I think that from the age of 7 you can start teaching a child, because at this age children very quickly enrich their vocabulary of their native language, they actively communicate with their peers, learn to listen to them. The child already has a fairly large stock of knowledge about the world around him. Therefore, there are no difficulties in learning new words of the English language if the child already has an idea about this subject or concept.

Experience as a teacher: 12 years old

Experience with Englex: 2 years

My personal conclusion: if there is time and opportunity, then why not send the child to a language studio from an early age. However, do not wait for him to suddenly speak. This is a general development, a liability that can shoot in the future. If it is worth highlighting priority classes, I would give preference to the development of motor skills, music, aesthetic and physical development, and from the age of 6-7 I connected the study of languages. I now mean the majority of children who learn the language in "artificial" conditions, without constant daily contact with it, regular immersion in the environment while traveling, etc.

I see many examples of early language learning. The examples are really different. There are children who come after many years of training from the age of 3, and they do not hold a group lesson with children of their age, with whom we have been working for the second year. It happens that in the process they adapt quite quickly and surpass the rest. And it happens that they lag behind or simply remain at the level of other students.

As you can see, we found more advantages in the second approach, but it should be remembered that this is not a hard and fast rule. Each child is individual, so the final decision on at what age it is better to teach English to a child is up to you.

Where to teach English to a child

So, you have made the decision to start teaching your child English. What to choose: homeschooling, courses or private lessons? Let's figure it out.

Home schooling

Home schooling with a parent is the best option for a child. Therefore, if your child is not yet 4-5 years old, try to teach him at home. At the end of the article we will tell you how to do it.

However, you can teach your child English at home only on the condition that you yourself know the language at least at an intermediate level and use fun learning methods. The child is just beginning to get acquainted with a new language, so it is important that this acquaintance is pleasant and interesting. You do not know English? You can try this option: you go to courses and begin to transfer your knowledge to the child. In this case, not only the child will benefit, but also you yourself. In our school, many adults learn the language for just this purpose: they want to teach children English, help with homework, etc. In addition, this allows us not to spend money on expensive tutors.

Teaching English in courses

At the age of 3-4 years, the child can be sent to a special kindergarten or early development center with English lessons, and after 7 years - to children's courses. At this age, it is important for children not only to learn English, but also to communicate with their peers at the same time, expand their social circle, and perform interesting tasks in a competitive environment.

The main point that you should consider is the level of knowledge of the children in the group. It is important that all children know English in approximately the same way, otherwise the child may be uncomfortable in the classroom.

After the child reaches an average level of English, you can try to send him to a special language camp. This will be a great encouragement and good motivation to further study English, and it will also allow the child to make friends from different parts of the world.

Individual training

We do not recommend starting individual education for children under the age of 7. Firstly, it will be difficult for a stranger to attract and hold the attention of the baby. Secondly, a child may not be interested in such activities: it is one thing to learn a language with the same kids, and quite another - alone with someone else's aunt.

There are significant drawbacks to individual learning: you will need to take your child to a tutor or invite a teacher to your home, which creates certain inconveniences. However, they can be avoided, because there is an alternative - from the age of 9, the guys successfully begin to study. If you want your child to try this way of learning, sign them up for a free trial lesson. You will be present at this lesson and will be able to understand whether this way of learning is suitable for the child.

How to teach your child English at home

If you have at least an average knowledge of English and a great desire to teach your child English at home, you can try to study with him without the help of a teacher. We cannot recommend this method of teaching as the best, because only an experienced teacher knows how and in what sequence to present the material so that the lessons are effective. However, if you are going to teach the baby, then this is really the right decision: he will be more comfortable with his mother than with a cheerful, but still someone else's aunt. Recommendations on how to start learning English with a child:

1. Favorite thing

It depends on you whether the child will love English or whether each lesson will be perceived as hard labor. Therefore, do not impose anything on the child, find such exercises that he will perform with pleasure. Use a game form of learning, not lessons from textbooks. If you can't get your kid interested in learning a language, then try to wait until he grows up.

2. Proper motivation

Adults talk about motivation all the time, but when it comes to teaching children, only the rule “the child will need this in the future, he’s just too young to understand it” is taken into account. Would you do anything if you were pointed to a vague future? And the child is all the more uninterested in hearing about some kind of “good education”, “career heights” and “prestigious jobs”. He wants to watch cartoons and eat ice cream with condensed milk. So define a learning goal that is appropriate for your child's age. For example, watch the most interesting cartoons and play games in English, read the newest English-language fairy tales that are not translated into Russian, etc. You will find more material on this topic, as well as the main motivation mistakes, in the article "".

3. Short lessons

It is difficult for a small student to sit out 45-60 minutes while studying English, so break the lesson into small "portions" of 10-15 minutes. A variety of exercises related to movements will also come to the rescue, for example, you pronounce a word in English, and the child performs the specified action. Also, change your activities: study words for 10 minutes, watch a cartoon for 10 minutes, sing a song for 5 minutes, etc.

4. Visual pictures

Surely young mothers have heard about Glen Doman's cards, and many have already used them. They are cardboard or plastic cards with drawn and signed objects. Exactly the same cards can be used to learn English words. You can write English words on ready-made Russian cards, or you can make a training set yourself. Find beautiful images of fruits, vegetables, animals, etc. on the Internet, print and sign. Children usually remember words easily by associating them with a picture. In addition, you can use the ready-made online dictionary in pictures on the site anglomaniacy.pl. You can also play vocabulary games at vocabulary.co.il. The child will love the bright pictures and the game form of learning.

5. Useful games

How to teach a child English at home effortlessly? Today, even 2-year-olds are easy to manage with a tablet or laptop. They enjoy playing simple games and coloring pages. Such entertainment can be turned into a mini-lesson in English, just go to learnenglishkids.britishcouncil.org and invite the child to play one of the proposed mini-games. This will not take much time and will allow you to learn a couple of useful words.

8. Favorite songs

It is probably difficult to find a kid who would not like to sing. The texts of children's songs "work" in the same way as poems: the child has fun, develops memory, and remembers useful words. Many simple songs for kids with lyrics and translations can be found on the websites kidsenglish.ru and english4kids.russianblogger.ru. If your child is still small, you can simply include these songs for him to listen to. In this case, children can listen to them without delving into the words and meaning of the text. So the baby will get used to the sound of foreign speech from childhood, and some psychologists believe that in this way the baby can even unconsciously memorize some words.

9. Tutorial videos

Educational videos for children are bright and interesting video lessons for the baby. Today on YouTube you can find dozens of channels with exciting and educational videos. We can recommend KidsTV123 and Busy Beavers.

10. Reading Rules

If your child already reads well in Russian, then it's time to move from passive listening to materials in English to reading. To begin with, you should teach the child the basic rules of reading, then he will have fewer questions about how to read a particular word.

Older children can already be offered to complete simple tasks, tests. It is important that the exercises are not too difficult and are presented as a game, then the child will not perceive them as another boring homework. Have him do the exercises at englishexercises.org or easygrammar4kids.

12. Simple tales and stories

Well, what child would refuse a bedtime story?! If you yourself speak English at least at an average level, you can read simple books to your child on your own, for example, kind and fascinating stories about Paddington Bear are written in simple language. And if you want your child to listen to exemplary English pronunciation, you can try turning on an audiobook. There are free materials for kids at bookbox.com and storynory.com.

13. Good tutorial

So that the child does not associate the word “textbook” with a boring book, select materials suitable for his age and interests. Authentic manuals are best suited, that is, textbooks by English-speaking authors are completely in English. They are always logical, easy to use and designed in a visual and bright way to keep kids interested. Our teachers have developed a detailed table that will allow you to choose a textbook that is suitable for your child by age.

(*.pdf, 218 Kb)

We hope that our article on how to teach a child English was useful to you and you have already decided at what age and where to teach children foreign languages. Choose those exercises and materials that are interesting for your baby, and go for it. We wish you exciting and effective activities with your baby!

Even Chekhov said: "How many languages you know, so many times you are a person." This saying is especially relevant today. The more languages you know, the more opportunities and prospects you have. And without English now - practically nowhere, i.e. in addition to the native language, it is desirable for the child to know at least one foreign language. How to teach your children a foreign language so that they speak it at a decent level and at the same time learning is not a burden? There are two possible scenarios here.

The ideal situation is natural bilingualism (trilingualism, etc.) from birth. If your family members speak different languages (for example, mother - Russian, and father - Romanian), or you yourself speak two languages perfectly, do not be afraid to communicate with your child from the first days of life in all those languages that you know. I repeat: it is important that the parent (grandmother, grandfather, aunt ...) be a native speaker, speak it fluently, competently and without an accent, otherwise there is a big risk that the baby will “absorb” these mistakes, and it can be difficult to correct them later .

If from birth with a child they speak two or three (or more) languages regularly (i.e. if this is the natural environment of his life), already by 2-3, less often by 4 years, a small person will not only understand, but also will begin to express himself in several languages, without confusing them with each other. In this case, the process of learning a foreign language (here you can’t say exactly which of the languages is native and which is foreign) is easy, as natural and effective as possible.

Here is a real example of one family. Liliana Botnaru and David Jesse have three children (6, 4 and 3 years old). All of them speak not only their native Romanian, but also English (the youngest daughter, due to her age, of course, is just starting to speak English).

“We didn’t specifically teach English to children,” says mother of three bilingual children Liliana Botnaru. - My husband and I speak English among ourselves (David is American), my husband and children also speak English, and my grandmother and I speak Romanian, and it has been like this since birth. Now children know two languages, and they have never confused them with each other.

The children started talking early. They began to pronounce their first words already at the age of one and a half, by the age of two they began to compose sentences. True, they mastered the Romanian language faster, because. went to the Romanian kindergarten, but at two and a half they began to speak English, although before that they understood English (this was obvious). To enrich vocabulary and develop speech, we read English books to kids, set them to listen to songs and watch cartoons in English. Also, we often have English-speaking guests at home, with whom the elders can easily carry on a conversation.

By the way, cartoons are a great way to teach a child a foreign language, even if no one in the family speaks this language. I remember that I was struck by the fact that when I worked as a volunteer in Moldovan villages, I met ordinary Moldovan rural children of primary school age who spoke English quite well at a conversational level. When I asked how they know a foreign language, the guys admitted that they just watched cartoons in English.

Personally, the linguistic courses that I took in my youth helped me a lot in learning English. Russian was my native language, and I only learned Romanian perfectly in college.”

“The phenomenon of bilingual families (trilinguals, etc.) is very common in our country,” says child psychologist Tatyana Kozman. — I grew up in a bilingual family, and my personal family is also bilingual. In our multilingual world, I think this is very promising. It is a mistake to believe that in a bilingual family it is necessary to communicate with a child in the same language so that he starts speaking faster and does not get confused. Children begin to speak according to the individual pace of development, regardless of the number of languages they hear in the environment. Oddly enough, children from an early age can not only distinguish between languages, but also understand the meaning of what was said, respond in the language in which they were asked. It is more efficient to “teach” children other languages from birth, because they do not learn, but unconsciously learn another language. With this development, both hemispheres are involved. If a child has mastered two languages from birth, it will be easier for him to learn both the third and fourth later.”

Another situation is acquired bilingualism, i.e. the child was taught a foreign language specially. Not every family has native speakers of different languages. And that's okay. What should those parents who want to raise their child bilingual (trilingual) do in this case? It's simple: you need to teach your child the language yourself! Two nuances are important here: it is you who should teach a foreign language to your child, and not a tutor or teacher of language courses, and secondly, you must speak the language being taught correctly (if you speak it with errors, you need to improve and learn the language with the baby ).

“A child learns a language easier and faster if it is spoken by parents or other people,” says child psychologist Tatyana Kozman. “You rarely see live, direct, everyday communication in the courses. Moreover, the courses study words, phrases separately, and the child's psyche needs not elements, but whole phrases, communication. And if parents speak another language with errors, there is an incentive to learn the “correct” language expressions with the child. It is not necessary to speak with children constantly in another language, you can spend only 10-15 minutes a day on this!”

Tatiana Leleka, mother of an eight-year-old bilingual son, a professional translator, teacher of English for preschool children, also believes that a mother is the best teacher of any language for her baby. And she advises to study English with children right from the cradle.

“From birth to six years is the age of linguistic genius, when children are not too lazy to memorize, listen, when they are interested in everything and they absorb everything. In Europe, in many families from early childhood, kids are taught two or three languages.

Why should a child start learning a foreign language with his mother? Because it is extremely important to instill a positive emotional coloring in this language in a child, and only a loving mother can do this, who can best find an approach to her child.

How does language learning happen in children?

From birth to a year - a period of adaptation, perception of the language by ear. The more sounds you give your child, the wider will be his range of perceived sounds. You can introduce your baby to four, five, even eight languages! This does not distort his hearing, but, on the contrary, develops it!
1-2 years - the period of passive vocabulary acquisition. The child isolates phrases from speech. At this time, you need to read books in a foreign language, play cartoons and educational films, speak with a child in a foreign language in a monologue format.
2-3 years - the period of understanding the language. The child no longer understands individual phrases, but streams of speech, he has a desire to speak.
3-4 years - the period of formation of speech. The child needs a companion. Mom should motivate the baby to speak a foreign language. If a mother does not speak the language perfectly, she has as much as 3-4 years from the moment the baby is born in order to improve her knowledge.
5-6 years - a period of independent work. Immersion in the language becomes longer: 1-1.5 hours. Be sure to allocate some of this time for independent work (working with coloring books, solving crossword puzzles in a foreign language, etc.).

Remember a few simple truths that will help you in teaching a foreign language to your child:

At an early age, children do not learn language - they comprehend the world through language.
Until the age of six, you should not have any control over your child's knowledge of a foreign language - in certain life situations, this knowledge can manifest itself, but you should not strive to learn it on purpose.
If you have taught your child your native language, then you are already a good linguist for your child.
All children are able to learn any language, there is no special gene responsible for this ability.
Do not translate foreign words to your child - show them to him in books, on cards, with gestures.
Encourage your grown-up child to speak a foreign language by talking with a native speaker on Skype, by traveling to another country.
You don't have to live in an English-speaking country to learn English.
Every mother can find 15-20 minutes a day to study a foreign language with her child.
Think of these activities not as an additional burden, but as a pleasure.
Believe in yourself and your child!”

Try it! I wish you all the best!

Bilingual children. How to teach a child a foreign language from an early age? was last modified: October 9th, 2014 by admin

The Secret of Bilingual Parents

Many books on child education often focus on how bilingual parents teach their child to a non-dominant language. For example, a Spanish mother speaks Spanish with him, and a German father speaks German, while they live in the USA. Thus, the baby will learn English through the society around him, he will learn Spanish with the help of his mother, and his father will help with German. And voila! Parents will raise a child who knows three languages. More than one book describes the result of such a course of events. Unfortunately, it is not always very easy to grow a real trilingual, even if you yourself know foreign languages perfectly.

What should people do who speak only one language and live in a monolingual environment?

Here are four main questions that come to mind when studying this problem:

Should he learn a non-dominant language (Chinese, for example) if, for example, only Russian is spoken in your country?

Let's take each question in turn.

How can two Russian-speaking parents teach a child a foreign language?

The first step is to learn the language yourself. Unlike playing the piano or dancing, learning a foreign language requires some parental involvement.

Without knowing musical notation, you can encourage a child and inspire him to music lessons, but in order to learn a language, communication is necessary. There is a story about how the baby spoke three different dialects, which were passed to him by a gardener, a nanny and a cook in India, although his parents knew only English.

Unfortunately, most of us do not have the opportunity to surround ourselves with foreign helpers, so the cheapest and most affordable way is to learn the language ourselves and practice it while communicating with the baby. He will grow, learn new words that you will understand.

If you can provide your child with the opportunity to contact native speakers, that's great. If you yourself can regularly communicate with him in a foreign language, that’s also good. If you read books, turn on cartoons and music, this will help develop a sense of language and fluency, but will not make your child bilingual.

Remember that the key to success is communication! Without it, the kid will never utter a single foreign word, no matter how many cartoons he has reviewed.

How many languages can a baby learn?

Of course, there is a limit, however, it does not lie in the number of languages, but in the depth of understanding and the scope of the vocabulary. It is understanding that comes before speaking skills.

Adults, sadly, have a certain limit of education. Explaining to a kid in his native language what a cat, dog, moon or spoon is is not a problem, but what to do with mathematical formulas, for example? How to present them in three languages in such a way that the child can understand the process?

It is very important to decide which languages are your priority. What use will they be? Based on the decision made, you will be able to direct the learning process in the right direction. It is possible that some languages will be mastered purely at the colloquial level, which is also not bad.

Of course, it's good when children can communicate with different people from all over the world without problems, but sometimes you have to make compromises.

Should a child learn a foreign language if, for example, only Russian is spoken in your country?

Answer: definitely worth it. When learning a foreign language, the child also increases the level of knowledge and understanding of the native language. He will talk about how his day went, jumping from one language to another, using new words in the right place.

At what age do you start training?

Modern research has shown that it is possible and even necessary to start learning a foreign language at an early and preschool age. Children learn information better and faster, develop, socialize, master mathematics, draw, write, etc. Some teachers argue that two years of learning a foreign language before school is much more effective than seven years of studying at school.

As for the age at which it is time to start getting acquainted with the language, then opinions differ. Some believe that the best time is the period when the child more or less knows his native language: he speaks, understands, thinks (about 5 years). Others argue: the sooner you start, the better the process will go, in addition, the baby will then speak without an accent.

Most importantly, do not forget that you are working with a child. Don't yell at him, don't scold him. Lessons should take place in the form of a game. This way you will be much more successful.

Good luck in your endeavors!

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Now it is very popular and even fashionable early development of children, in particular, early learning of foreign languages. Quite often, young mothers begin to teach languages (especially English) to one and a half year old and even three month old (!) babies - they show them cards with English words, put on cartoons in English, etc.

At first glance, it's a total benefit. But is it?

From a linguistic standpoint, no. Judge for yourself.

Problem one. The sounds in English and Russian are very different. In English, th is this, think is the norm. And in Russian - thima (winter) and thlisten (listen) - the norm? Of course not.

A child, having not yet mastered the sounds of his native language, from the cradle is accustomed to sounds that are wrong in his native language, but correct in English! And then the visits to speech therapists begin... Even the classics wrote that it is impossible to learn foreign languages without first mastering the native language well.

The second problem. The first words of an English child and a Russian child differ in the number of syllables. Compare: cat - cat, go - let's go, book - book. In this regard, English children are lucky - their first words are mostly one-syllable, while in Russian - two or more syllables.

And what is easier to say to a child: apple or apple-lo-ko? Of course, apple! Parents rejoice: the daughter pointed to an apple and said: "apple". What is there to rejoice here? The child chose a convenient option for himself, while in general he should say just "apple". The child still does not speak his native language well enough, and the parents, without realizing it, push back his speech development even further!

Problem three. Children will definitely confuse English and Russian words.

The situation is different if we are talking about a bilingual family - where one parent speaks Russian, and the other, for example, French. If the house is constantly - I emphasize, constantly! - both languages \u200b\u200bare heard, then the child will not confuse them (of course, there are exceptions here, but basically this is the case), since this situation will be natural for him, he will “cook” in it from birth.

The situation is the same with a Russian-speaking family who moved, for example, to Germany: at home they speak Russian, but all social life, everything outside the home, takes place only in German. Children in this case also quickly learn the language and do not confuse languages, as they use both of them constantly, every day.

Thus, if you want your child to learn the language and not confuse words, you will have to speak with him, for example, only in English, and dad in Russian.

Of course, without foreign languages now nowhere, they are very important for children. Of course they need to be trained. But is it worth doing it in a year or two or three?

I am a linguist, teacher of English and French, and many people ask me: "Well, are you going to teach English and French to your children from the cradle?"

"No way," I reply.

After all, the child will still have time to learn them. You can start at five, six years old, if you really want to do it early, before school, but not in a year or three!

The school will also study languages, already from the first grade in many schools there are two languages, and then three. You can always improve your knowledge with the help of courses, tutors, of which there are a great many now, choose - I don’t want to.

Why start learning languages at such a tender age? Wouldn't it be better to pay closer attention to the general development of his speech, attention, memory, physical development?

Personally, only one thing comes to my mind - now all this, unfortunately, is not fashionable ... It sounds much nicer because it sounds: "My Petenka already speaks English at the age of 4!" Or: "I have been studying English with Anechka since she was two years old!".

Parents are just feeding their egos. Perhaps they themselves were deprived of the opportunity to learn languages in childhood, or they think that learning languages early guarantees better language skills, who knows.

But think about it, are you doing your child a disservice with this?

Personal experience

Maria Belokopytova

Comment on the article "Child and foreign languages: when to start learning?"

We live in Germany, my daughter was born here, we speak Russian at home, naturally everyone speaks German in the kindergarten, our daughter is now 2 years old, she understands everything in both languages, she says something in German in a mix, something in Russian. Our grandmother tells us all the time that the child somehow speaks very little (no long sentences), I explain it precisely that the child is a duolingo. Let's see how it will be further, there are plans to send it to a kindergarten with the study of English from the age of 4, in this kindergarten we were advised that English will be only once a week and in a playful way, there are also many children in the kindergarten for whom English is a third language . I also know about the wonderful Lexilize Flashcards mobile application, but this is for older children for schoolchildren, where you can directly fill in your words that the child goes through in the lesson and teach them with games. I myself learn German with this app, maybe someone is looking for something similar.

English is of course the priority. But it is easier to superimpose other foreign languages on German, as the teacher explained to us. German was easy for us, we began to study in the 1st grade, when the child's interest in learning appeared. Now he speaks it easily, sometimes even unconsciously starts in German, they are encouraged to do this in the courses) We go to school all the time, even when we are sick, we just study via Skype. We go to the school of foreign languages Linguist-I.

I gave my daughter at the age of 4 here to the British kindergarten ILA Aspec. I liked the program taught to children. Plus, good learning conditions, food, a rich program in summer, because. The kids can be sent to summer camp. Our truth will go to the camp only in a year, they recruit there from the age of 5. We decided that we would send it to the complex, which is located on the border with Germany. And the child will visit, as it were, not in Russia, new impressions

Total 13 messages .

Talk to him more in your chosen language

If you yourself speak a foreign language, speak it with your child. Just don't try to explain grammar to him. Just name the things around you, sing songs and listen to fairy tales in a foreign language, you can watch cartoons in a foreign language. It is better to choose not very complex cartoons with a clear plot, this helps a lot in mastering grammar at a primitive level. Especially good are cartoons with a "narrator" who comments on the actions of the characters. Now it is very easy to find a lot of supporting materials on the Internet. If your child is very young, try to find those books, fairy tales and songs that native speakers use to develop their children.

You can find a center for teaching kids a foreign language, but group learning is very much inferior to individual learning, even if you are the teacher.

If you have a friend or relative who is fluent in some foreign language, ask him to visit more often and speak with the child mainly in a foreign language. If possible, ask him not to speak Russian at all for the first time. You can invite this person to make several audio recordings in the language being studied, it is best if these recordings sound directly to your child, as in ordinary speech.