In our Western culture, it is engrained for a long time that play is the best way for children to learn, grow and develop. According to Froebel (1897), “Play holds the source of all that is good” for the child. Piaget, the educational theorist, stated in the 1930s that play provides an ideal environment for the child’s development.
Although we often believe that free unstructured play is the most effective to learn a 2nd language, what several parents express is the need to be actively involved in playing with their child. Some type of structure helps learning.
After talking to parents that play with their children in a 2nd language, here are 5 ways parents foster learning of a new language through Play:
1. Role playing
2. Turning family activities into play
3. Playing out imaginary stories
4. Unstructured play
5. Learning through games
1. Role playing
Role-playing is probably the most effective form of play to practice a 2nd language. The constant interaction really engages the children and help repeat vocabulary and sentences
“Emma is the owner of the grocery store, and I am the customer. I buy different things and I ask how much each costs”
“Pablo loves to be the zoo keeper. So we play together and make sure each animal in the zoo has fun”
2. Turning family activities into play
Children love to learn and play through activities they do with their parents. It is a great way to develop vocabulary. Often, these are activities that parents truly enjoy, and want to share with their own children
“We play soccer with my daughter and I repeat to her everything that I do in French: I pass you the ball, kick it, you just scored, etc.”
“I like spending time with my son cooking in the kitchen. As we make a soup, I repeat frequently the names of all vegetables and ask him to do the same.”
3. Playing out imaginary stories
“My son loves Spiderman. So we pretend that Spiderman is in Italy and I am a bad guy there that he is trying to stop”
“I do a little theater-play with my daughter at bedtime. I act out a little scene for less than a minute, for example I am going for a walk in the forest and I meet animals with funny colors. Then, my daughter will do the little show”
4. Unstructured play
Parents see the effectiveness of their child play in an unstructured way. However, this works best when a child is with other kids that only speak the 2nd language you want your kid to learn.
“We organize play-dates with other children whose parents are Chinese. However, when the kids are together, they tend to play in English”
“When go to Germany, Victor just plays all the time in German with his cousins. A great way for him to become more fluent”
5. Learning through games
Games definitely bring fun in language learning. They also often involve friendly competition and keep the kids engaged.
“We take a bunch of cards and turn them upside down to play a memory game to find the matching cards”
“When I still want Daniel to listen to some Hindi while I am cooking, I let him play some games in Hindi on the iPad”
Depending of the environment, play dates with other children can be of limited effectiveness to develop learning of a 2nd language. Parents stress that frequent interactions with mom or dad while playing tends to give much better results in increasing the likelihood of the child saying words in the 2nd language.
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