Raising bilingual children is not an unreachable dream—even if you and your partner only speak one language! What it needs are unwavering dedication, patience, efforts and encouragement from every family member.
While being bilingual brings considerable benefits like keeping the brain sharp and healthy, you might be concerned that learning two languages is confusing for your children.
Worry not; children are very sensitive to how people speak differently. And they are capable of picking up multiple accents and phonetics more quickly as compared to adults. Research even suggests that you can introduce a new language as early as when your child is one year old.
Here are what you can do to help your children learn languages that you don’t speak fluently yet give them the best possible head start in this world.
How to Successfully Raise Bilingual Children
#1: Integrate Target Language Into Their Daily Lives
Our young children can pick up words from different languages easily if they are given constant exposure to the language.
My friend recently shared with me that she is amazed by how well her little nephew can blurt out English words though his parents speak only in Mandarin. She found out from the parents that her nephew watches a variety of children’s show on Netflix that are conducted in English.
With this in mind, you can create an immersive language learning environment by looking for content that is appropriate for your children’s age, level and interests. Ranging from cartoon, music videos and even educational shows, these resources offer a great opportunity for your children to learn the language in authentic and enjoyable settings.
If you are uncertain where to start with, here are some official YouTube channels for children to pick up Mandarin:
- Little Fox Chinese – Stories & Songs for Learners
- Little Chinese Learners [Simplified Chinese]
- Ezy Mandarin
- BabyBus 宝宝巴士
- Pinkfong 碰碰狐
You can equally look into the following YouTube channels to create a conducive learning environment for English language learning:
- Cocomelon – Nursery Rhymes
- Super Simple Songs – Kids Songs
- English Singsing
- Mother Goose Club
- British Council | LearnEnglish Kids
#2: Look For Kids-Friendly Language Lessons
As a monolingual parent, we can help to arrange language learning lessons and even online tutoring for our children. To have our children master another language, language learning lessons that come with the elements of interactivity, creativity and variety can be very effective.
As children usually have a short attention span, they need language learning activities that engage their senses and imaginations. Thus, you can look for lessons that incorporate creative elements such as interesting lesson contents with attractive presentations, stories, games, and activities.
On top of this, you can identify a good language learning programme by looking into the variety of activities that the programme offers. This is essential as children typically only engage with activities that interest them.
Despite your good intentions to build them a solid foundation for their future, your children are not going to think:
Being bilingual is going to build me a better future.
Instead, what they may constantly have in mind is:
What am I going to enjoy in the lesson right now?
Therefore, look for language learning lessons that enable children to recycle the vocabulary or other language elements in different ways like songs, games and activities.
#3: Encourage Them To Read Aloud
Reading out loud helps your children to be comfortable with learning the target language as it helps them to be familiar with the unfamiliar words.
To start off the journey of reading aloud, you can first look for books that come with repetitive words or audio features. Your children can first listen to the model reading and try out his own reading aloud after the listening session.
Do bear in mind not to overcorrect your children as this may crash their confidence. What you can do instead is to rephrase what they say nicely so that they can hear the correct way of pronouncing the words. If they read their books well, compliment them from time to time to reaffirm their language learning.
With consistent practice through reading aloud, your children will be able to pick up and expand his vocabulary besides learning on grammar and sentence structure of the language.
#4: Learn the Language Yourself
In mastering a language, communication is key. Besides sending your children to a school setting or language learning environment that encourages the usage of the target language, you should also learn the language yourself. You can then help your children to practise by speaking with them in the language.
If learning another language is too time-consuming for you, you can try to pick up a little bit from your children. Get your children to teach you a few words or phrases every day to build your vocabulary in the target language.
By showing interest in learning another language, your children will feel more confident and rewarded. This will make them want to speak more as they teach. With that, your children will be able to internalise the language through speaking.
Make Raising Bilingual Children An Exciting Journey For the Family
As learning a new language is a process, constant practice and usage is the key in raising bilingual children. The more often your children use the new language, the more it gets ingrained in their minds.
Nevertheless, try to make the language learning process natural and fun. Never make the learning of a new language a burden or struggle for the whole family.
Just remember that you are giving your child the gift of language that is going to benefit them for a lifetime!
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