Teaching your children a second (or third!) language at home is much easier than you may think.

First, consider why you’re teaching them another language. Is it because you are taking a vacation in a country where they speak that language? Are you trying to encourage them to speak a language that you are already fluent in? Does anyone in the home speak the language?

Learning a language has four components: reading, writing, speaking and listening. To be considered fluent in a language, a person must be able to do all four. However, they are separate skills. For example, a child may know how to read and write Spanish in full sentences but isn’t able to speak it. Without regularly practicing the brain-to-speech connection (by speaking aloud conversationally), a child will not learn effectively learn the language. Having said that, the purpose behind why you’re learning that new language influences what aspects to spend the most time on.

For example, if you are learning French because you’re going to be spending 3 weeks in Lyon, then it stands to reason that you focus most of your attention on learning conversational speech (speaking + listening skills) above spending a lot of time on writing and grammar. Or, if you are teaching your child the langauge that you grew up speaking with the goal of full fluency, then you would likely want to focus on all 4 aspects of language learning in cadence with their age/grade at school.

To focus on the speaking and reading skills:

• Begin with simple greetings like ‘hello’ and ‘goodbye’ – it’s truly the easiest place to start. Begin using it in place of English words at different times. For example, when you pick them up from school, say “Hola! Como estas?”
• Label objects in the home with the foreign language (furniture, rooms, toys, doors, windows, etc.)
• Check out children’s bilingual books from the library. Many of the popular children’s series in English come in editions that include the Spanish translations on the pages as well. Use bilingual books that are at least a couple levels below their current reading level to keep it simple at the beginning.
• At the dinner table (or any place you want) try repeating yourself in the language after first saying it in English. In fact, the more you do this throughout the day (even when speaking to yourself) the faster your speaking skills will improve.

To practice the listening and writing skills:

• Find a fun bilingual podcast for kids. My kids loved the ‘Eat Your Spanish” podcast on Spotify. They would ask to listen on the way home from school most days.
• Draw pictures together and label with translated words.
• Play music! Every country uses nursery rhymes and silly songs, just like we do in the US. They tend to be just as catchy and fun as they are in English, and the kids will learn so much vocabulary from this alone! Repatition is key though, so find a playlist they like (for Spanish I recommend ‘Canticos’ on Spotify) and play it regularly.
• Bilingual audiobooks for kids- these come with a follow-along book that helps a child see the word alongside hearing the word aloud. (We liked Madeline – it came with a book and CD for the car, and included bilingual French songs at the end too).
• Turn subtitles on when watching TV. Listen in English and subtitles in Spanish; you can also do Spanish with English subtitles too.