Want your child to learn a foreign language? With so many benefits of being bilingual in an increasingly multicultural society, more and more parents are helping their children learn a foreign language. Bilingualism helps your children develop their cognitive skills, do well in school, and create a high degree of tolerance. Bilingualism helps you raise children who embrace diversity, appreciate other cultures, and help make the world a better place.
While you probably want your kids to receive the amazing benefits that learning a foreign language offers them, the chances are that you’re not sure how to get started. We’ve prepared a detailed guide to help parents like you help their children acquire a foreign language right from their homes.
Begin Early
The best hack to help your children be bilingual is to start as early as possible. Even babies have the potential to be bilingual, as confirmed by research. While teaching a foreign language to babies is ideal if the parents are bilingual too, monolingual parents can find it hard to start early. We recommend that children should be introduced to a foreign language when they’re starting primary school.
It’s often believed that the capacity to acquire a foreign language diminishes as you grow older. This isn’t to suggest that older children and adults can’t earn a foreign language. There have been many examples of people getting native-like fluency in foreign languages even when they’ve started learning it as adults. However, your child will be able to learn faster if they start at an early age.
Use Online Resources
The internet has made our lives so much easier. There are many tools available today that can help your child learn and practice a foreign language faster. There are mobile applications that help you learn foreign words which are easily downloadable on your child’s smartphone. You can even check out YouTube videos to teach basic sentences in foreign languages to your children. You can even teach your children through watching movies and television shows in the given language. There are e-books where you can grammar rules with tests and quizzes to help you practice. However, these theoretical foundations are essential but not sufficient to help your child gain fluency in a language. These tools should only be used as supplements and not solely relied upon to acquire a foreign language.
Find Opportunities to Practice the Language
Getting a theoretical foundation isn’t very useful if your child doesn’t get to practice a language they’re learning. Learning to read and write in a language is great, but you also need to find people your child can practice a foreign language. Find people in your community who speak the language and help your child interact with them. Find your child an online buddy through a reliable platform and encourage your child to practice the language with them. This will help your child get fluent in the language and provide them with an opportunity to get to know a culture. You can even go the extra mile to by taking your children to visit a country where the language is spoken. This might appear hard, but given the benefits of learning a foreign language, it’s totally worth the effort!
Sign Up for A Foreign Language Course
If you’re not bilingual, it’s best to get external help. There are so many online foreign language courses available that can help your child acquire a foreign language. It’s advisable to do your research about the course and the instructors. Always choose a well-reputed organization with experienced instructors. It’s even better if the instructor is a native speaker, as it might help your children get closest to achieving native fluency.
But a foreign language course lasts for a specific duration. If the child doesn’t continue to practice the language after the course has ended, there are high chances that they won’t retain much of what they have learned. Make sure that your child continues to get enough practice after the foreign language course is over.
Enroll Them in An Online Bilingual School
This is by far the most effective step in helping your children acquire a foreign language with ease and fluency. A bilingual education helps your child consume academic content in two languages. This could be a native language as well as a secondary language. This is different from simply teaching a foreign language as a separate subject or as an external course.
Through a bilingual education, your child will be able to master two languages with native-like fluency! It helps your child practice languages with their teachers and fellow students who’re engaging with the same language. It also helps your children find a community with similar goals and ambitions and interact with natives of another language. The wide level of exposure, native students and teachers, cultural exchange opportunities, and ongoing foreign language teaching make this option ideal for your child.
Want your child to receive the extraordinary benefits of bilingualism? Enroll them in a bilingual school today!
Ideal School is an online bilingual elementary school that offers one of the region’s leading education to your child. We use the most recent teaching methodologies, including active and interactive learning, intending to develop the leader in your child. The school is strongly committed to setting your child up for success in the twenty-first century with a truly multicultural environment.
Begin your child’s journey with us by enrolling now! To read more about us, visit our website or call us at 1 888-390-7044 to get in touch with our experts today.
