“Learning a 2nd language: I know my children will be thankful later on”

The 5 Questions: How do you inspire your children to learn a 2^nd language?

Profile: Joel and son Pascal (8) and daughter Alina (6)

Location: Zurich, Switzerland

Main language: German

Language learned with Dad: English

What is your favorite activity that helps your Pascal and Alina learn English?

I enjoy reading stories to Alina in English. My parenting language is English. So any games we play with Pascal and Alina are in English.

What is a helpful tool you use?

YouTube and Google are great tools we use to explain things in English. The other day Alina had a question about clouds and how rain is formed. I did not have a good answer that came to mind. So we searched on YouTube and found a video in English that explains it.

What is your #1 challenge? What helps in overcoming this challenge?

Airtime. 90% of the time they are in a German environment, at school, with friends, with my wife Hana who only uses German with them.

Having my Mom over helps. She speaks only in English to them. We might also find a bilingual school to have things more balanced between the two languages.

Any tip or advice you have for other parents?

Just do it. Make the commitment to do it, even if you do not have much airtime. I was raised with 3 languages and loved it. Games are also important. Playing games makes it easier for the kids to have a desire to learn and practice a language.

What keeps you going?

Knowing how beneficial it is to learn languages early, and knowing also the kids will be thankful later on, once they understand the benefit.

The 4 pillars of story-telling to learn a second language

Reading and telling stories is the common element to parents who raise their children with a second language. Not only is it the common element, it is the #1 on the priority list.

Parents that raise their kids with a second language are “story addicts”. They find every possible opportunity to tell or listen to stories with their children. Here are the 4 pillars of how parents expose their children to stories:

1. Creating a story routine

2. Making children actors in the story

3. "Everywhere story-telling"

4. Using technology as a story-telling complement

Creating a story routine

Stories are an excellent way to get the attention of children, especially when the story is a familiar one. Children love their routines. Creating a story-telling routine in a second language makes kids look forward to a story on a regular basis.

-       “Reading the same story, night after night. My son does not want to listen to another story. He knows the story in Russian by heart. I think I read it over 50 times.”

-       “Coming home after work, I read a 5-minute story on the couch”

-       “During breakfast on week-ends I read 2 or 3 stories, usually a fairy tale or hero story, Not sure if it gives them the best manners at the table, but it helps them listen to French”

Making children actors in the story

Creating stories where children are the heroes makes them engaged and helps them practice the second language.

-       “At bedtime, making up a story where our children are the heroes. It gets them very engaged, as they want to hear what will happen”

-       “I like playing with puppets: creating a 1 minute story that I tell, then having my daughter act out also a 1 minute story”

“Everywhere story-telling”

Talking, having frequent conversations, finding opportunities everywhere to tell stories or listen to them is used by parents to expose the children as much as possible to the second language.

-       “Going to the park, and telling a story about what we see there, in Hindi”

-       “When driving, I put on children stories on CDs in Spanish”

Using technology as a story telling complement

Technology will never replace what parents or teachers do directly with the children to learn a second language. However, it can greatly help in reinforcing what parents or educators do.

-       “Having grandma reading a story via skype, showing the pictures of the book to the camera”

-       “Listening to podcasts on the internet (ex: Cody’s Cuentos). Every week is another story in Spanish, we listen to it together”

-       “Screen time on week-ends: we listen to French stories on the iPad for 15 min”

 What is your own habit of telling or listening to stories with your child, in a second language?

“Guerilla teaching tactics" to help children learn a 2nd language

From several conversations with parents that are raising their children with two or more languages, I realized several are using what I call “guerilla language teaching tactics".

Here is a definition of what it is: Indirect strategies to teach a language to children, involving, but not limited to, laughs, play and songs.

Why “guerilla language teaching”?

-       It is unstructured

-       It combines language teaching with daily activities

-       It often involves 5- to 10-minute action spurts

-       It implies that parents want their children to learn a new language, whatever it takes

Here are some of the tactics parents shared. Usually, the amount of time spent on the second language children are learning is limited: the parent teaching the language is at work, and most of day is spent at school or pre-school with the main language.

These parents then use “guerilla language teaching” tactics whenever they are around the children. A few examples:

-      Describing the clothes to the children when getting them dressed as babies (“Here I take your left foot and put a red sock on it”, “Have you seen the beautiful blue T-shirt you are wearing?)

-      Singing songs in the language taught when giving the bottle

-      Describing what is around when going on a walk with the stroller (“Have you seen this big white car driving by?”, “Can you see the little squirrel right there?)

-      Doing play-by-plays in play sports together on the lawn (“And I pass you the ball. Kick it!)

-      Reading a 10-minute story while having breakfast

-      Listening to a 10-minute story in on CD while driving the car

-      Using the iPad to have the kids listen to a story while paying the bills

-      Making a salad for lunch and going over the names of the vegetables

“Guerilla language teaching” just means that having children learn a language is a daily commitment. It does not have to be hours spent on a specific subject. It means that you commit to do one or two things a day using the language you want to teach.