Language Learning at Home

I'm very in favor of kids learning foreign languages, and I've recently been thinking about teaching kids languages at home and how it can/should be done. First, I'm assuming that the parents have been speaking only English to the child; this isn't a kid who has been raised bilingual. Second, I'm not really going to say much about what I think about any of the "curricula" I mention; I do like some more than others. Third, so much of all of this depends on the child, so rather than constantly repeat that, I'm going to make that a disclaimer: timing, pace, and manner of learning are all so, so student dependent. (Also, questions and comments would be really appreciated. I love thinking about this, and there's still a lot about which I'm unsure.)

Q: When should a child start learning a foreign language?

I started learning French when I was five, and I think it was about the right age. I've gone back and forth about how much a student's level in English should impact when to start. I could already read, for example. Is it better to wait until the child can read? I'm not sure that's necessary because the early stages of learning a new language at this point are not going to focus too much on writing.

Q: Okay, so what language?

For this first foreign language, I would choose a language with a lot of material available - movies with tracks in this language, music, books, and whatever the main learning tool is going to be (whether that be software, DVDs, CDs + books, or something else).

What languages does this open up? Spanish, French, and German, certainly, but there's more and more material for kids in other languages. For example, Little Pim has Mandarin, Russian, Italian, Japanese, Arabic, Hebrew, and Portuguese; Learnables has Mandarin, Hebrew, Japanese, and Russian; and Muzzy has Mandarin, Italian, Russian, and Portuguese. (Dino Lingo has dozens of languages, but I don't know much about it.) Other places to look at what's available, particularly as far as books go, in various languages are Language Lizard and the International Children's Digital Library. 

The other option I think is reasonable is a language in which one of the parents is comfortable, but with younger kids it's a lot harder to teach a language for which there's not much material. Wealth of material provides more choices and more room for the child to grow in language. If the language the child is studying isn't one that a parent knows, then a parent should be willing to learn the language along with the child. This can be a lot of fun!

Q: You said 'first foreign language' earlier. Does that mean there's a second?

I would start a second foreign language between ages 8 and 10. This is a nice age because it's an age when more of the material that's out there opens up. Things like Rosetta Stone or Mango aren't quite right for very young kids, but at this point they would be appropriate. (I used Pimsleur at this age and found it too business-y, but your mileage may vary.) If the student likes the structure a textbook provides, there are lots of those, too! All of these materials are available in a lot of languages, which provides more freedom in language choice. DuoLingo doesn't have as many language options, but it's free and online. Speaking of language choice, I would definitely let the student choose this time. Parents can certainly limit the selections, but generally this should be a language the student wants to learn.

Q: Is two languages it?

After language 2, if the student wants to learn more, cool! That's awesome. Languages do need to be more of a commitment than a lot of other interests, though, and the student should be aware of this. It's not too hard to study geology, ornithology, and astronomy all at once, even if you didn't know anything about any of them to start. It's really hard to be a beginner in Czech, Tamil, and Hawaiian at the same time. It's too easy for things to not stick or to get mixed up when you're a beginner in multiple languages at once.

Q: Okay, so how do you actually do this?

Start with material. I linked a bunch of different possible base curricula above. Figure out which one makes the most sense for your child. I would also get books pretty quickly, especially if a parent knows the language. Reading with kids is a fantastic way for them to learn a language. Then there are all kinds of other things: posters, movies with foreign language tracks, CDs. Just like with the base curriculum, look at what's out there and figure out what would be helpful for your child. At some point, you'll probably change the base curriculum. That's fine; do what's best for the student. Eventually, no base curriculum will be necessary at all.

When the student is young or starting a new language, devote time to the target language everyday. It doesn't have to be much time, but the language needs to be consistently present because language learning involves so much practice. Once a student has reached a certain maturity in the language, they don't need to study it everyday anymore, but consistency and goals are still important.

Set specific and measurable short-term goals. With a young child, this can be as simple as spending a specified amount of time with the target language everyday, but as the student matures in a language and grows older, the goals should be more focused. Goals could be to do a certain number of lessons, to read so many articles, to listen to the radio for a certain amount of time, or to write a story.

One of the most valuable assignments I was ever given in a language course was to watch an hour of Spanish TV/videos per week, at least half of which had to be news, and write summaries of what I saw. The progress I made in listening comprehension over the course of a year was astounding, and it happened because I was required to sit down for a set amount of time and actively listen. Similarly, my reading comprehension improved immensely by reading. I wrote down the words I didn't understand and looked them up, and then I drew a picture or wrote down the translation beside the target language word. I studied the vocab and reread what I'd already read, referring back to the list. All of that comes back to this: language learning is active, and context is really useful.

If the student has studied English grammar, they can study grammar in their foreign language(s). To me, this means that the study of grammar in foreign language 1 probably starts around the time that the student starts learning foreign language 2, give or take a bit. The student will have been around foreign language 1 for a while already, and a lot of things will probably start making sense. From speaking and reading, I already knew what a lot of proper grammar sounded like; it was just a matter of formalizing it.

This also means that grammar will start a lot earlier in foreign language 2. This is one of the places where I'm really going to invoke the disclaimer. I loved grammar, and for me it provided a framework that I could learn quickly, and then I could hang all the vocab I was learning on that framework. I've had peers who struggled with grammar but learned vocab with astonishing speed. For someone like me, learning grammar simultaneously in two languages would be fine. For someone who struggles with grammar, it would be better to stagger it a bit.

Some last notes on grammar: I love the English Grammar for Students of Other Languages series. These books are available for Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Latin, Russian, and Spanish. My copy for French improved my understanding of both French and English grammar. It shouldn't be the only source for grammar, though; it's best as a supplement. The Barron's 501 Verbs books are also great for conjugation study.

Buy a good bilingual dictionary. Later, buy a good monolingual dictionary. Going to a bookstore or looking around Amazon is probably good enough for the bilingual dictionary. Buying a good monolingual dictionary could be a bit harder, but look around the internet and talk to teachers of the language.

Fairy tale books, books in translation, and topical vocabulary books are wonderful. Fairy tales are generally familiar stories. Familiarity is super useful for language learning because it allows the student to focus on the details of the language instead of having to worry about very basic understanding. Similarly, translations of favorite books into the foreign language are a good idea. Lots of my friends really improved their French or Spanish by reading Harry Potter in those languages. I love topical vocabulary books because grouping words by topic essentially provides a context, so I could learn the vocab for a particular set of possible situations and conversations without having to dig through a dictionary. Phrasebooks are okay, but I find the vocab books more versatile.

But read original language books, too. Translated books give the possibility of familiarity, which I just praised, but books in the original language are often going to be better examples of the target language in writing. Whenever I visit a country where a language I learn is spoken, I buy a lot of books, even if they're too hard for me at that point. I'll grow in my language, and I'll have the books when I'm ready for them.

The student should be listening, reading, speaking, and writing. Obviously, at young ages, reading and writing may lag behind a bit, and that's reasonable. That will often also be true for a beginner in a language with a different writing system, though in that case it's really important to work on learning to read and write. It's normal for a student to not be at the same level in all four skills, but the student shouldn't neglect one in favor of the others.

The student (and parents, if they're guiding) should think about different kinds of listening, reading, speaking, and writing in what they do and in the goals they make. The most common division is presentational vs. personal. How is listening to the news different than listening to a soap opera? How is writing to a friend different than writing an essay? Something else that comes out of this is audience - the difference in addressing a friend, a grandmother, and a boss, for example. The student should also be listening to a variety of voices. Different people have different accents and talk at different speeds. This is especially important for languages that are spoken in a lot of places around the world.

It's really useful to find a 'tutor' once the student is at an intermediate or advanced level, if not earlier. Remember when I mentioned outgrowing curriculum? At that point a 'tutor' is fantastic, and I don't mean someone to help with homework. I mean someone who is very comfortable in the language who will read with the student, play games, fine tune the student's pronunciation, read and correct their writing, and guide the student's language learning.

Summer language camps provide safe and immersive environments. Middlebury has summer programs for 8th-12th graders in French, Spanish, German, Mandarin, and Arabic.  Concordia Language Villages provides programs in 15 languages for ages 8 and up. Concordia also has Family Weekends at some camps when parents and kids together can come and have fun learning language. Both Middlebury and CLV are immersion programs; the students are surrounded with the target language all the time. Classes and activities all happen in the target language.

Check out your local library. Tutors, camps, books, curriculum - all of this can be pretty expensive, so if your library has materials, that's really useful. My local library has Little Pim and Mango free for anyone who has a library card, and it has some foreign language books. My elementary school library also had a surprising collection of French books.