7 tips to learn a new language as a Mom

Learning a new language is a fascinating experience. It can be transformational. Your perceptions about the people, their culture and traditions can change significantly. That’s how I felt 11 years ago, when I first met my husband and I had to learn French to be able to communicate with my in-laws. Now, I am learning Chinese and I feel the same way, as if a whole new world would have opened in front of my eyes.

But…yes, wait. Something is different. I now happen to be a full-time working mom and all the time I used to have in my hands is no longer there. How do you make a commitment, find the time and make it happen while being a mom?

Here are 7 tips that help me in sustaining my Mandarin learning efforts.

1. Learn it with your husband

My husband started to learn Chinese with podcasts in the car because he had a long commute. “Why wait until we retire to learn a new language?” he would wonder.  I am a competitive person and I didn’t want to fall behind so I started also. It was fun to check on each other’s progress and practicing our broken Chinese made our dinners quite enjoyable.

2. Learn it with your kids

At the same time, we decided to sign up our kids for Chinese Saturday school. We thought that learning Chinese would make our children (4 and 7 years old) more open-minded and give them more opportunities. I also signed up to be the class mom, which helped me learn at the same time than my daughter. Learning as a family makes it definitely easier. We are all in it together. We all have homework. No excuses.

3. Make it flexible with Skype

My husband and I both work full-time and raise 2 children. Like all parents we are busy and our plates are full. We found an affordable online tutoring service via Skype twice a week, from 9:30pm and 10pm. The kids are in bed, so no guilt. But yes, I guess we are a little bit nuts. Anyhow, we really enjoy our teacher, and… it is a real pleasure to learn while sipping a glass of red wine.

4. Do it 10 minutes at a time

It is quite difficult to find time to study and do homework. At night, I am really tired. During the day, not a chance, and in the evening, it is all about the kids. ‘Well…what about commuting time?’ would ask my ‘dear’ husband. I guess, at the beginning I didn’t think that 10 minutes could make a difference but… he was right, it really helped. And now, it is like coffee. I kind of need my free Chinese podcast in the morning. It gets me going.

5. Enjoy the food

Like many people, we love to eat good food. Since we started learning Chinese, we became more interested in the cuisine. We started going to a local Chinese restaurant. Added bonus: we practice Mandarin with the owners and we get desserts for free!

6. Have a 10-year outlook

With my husband we said it would be great to be fluent in 10-years from now. Low pressure, it helps us take it easy, and if we are fluent in 4 or 5 years from now, we will have exceeded our expectations!

7. Plan a trip

I have never been to China. We are planning to go there as a family. It gives me additional motivation to sustain my language learning efforts, and the preparation of the trip is a much of a learning opportunity as the trip itself.

Here are some other tips from moms learning a new language. I encourage you to check them out:

The Story of How It Worked For Me: One Mom’s Journey at The Everyday Language Learner

Motherhood & Language Learning: An Attempt to Reach the Lower Level of Babel at Multilingual Living
http://www.yourlanguageguide.com/learning-spanish-language.html at Your Language Guide

Language Learning Carnival at Sahm Sisters

The Lazy Expat Mom's Guide to Language Learning at I Was An Expat Wife

10 Tips to learning a New Language and Surviving it Mentally at Rachel’s Rantings

How parents foster learning of a 2nd language through Play

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 2^nd 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 2^nd 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 2^nd 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 2^nd 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 2^nd 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 2^nd language.