Teach You Kids a Foreign Language at Home

If you want to teach your children a foreign language as home do some careful advance planning and set some clear goals. Do you want them to just gain basic conversational skills? Maybe you're interested in your kids learning a dead language such as Latin. Or perhaps your kids just want to get reading knowledge so they can follow events in foreign newspapers. Whatever your goals, you will have much more success getting and holding your kid’s attention if you try to tie their new language with other aspects of their learning and particularly special outings. Keep your eyes open for movies, restaurants, ethnic festivals or holidays that will help them see relevance in what they are studying. Kids become world-class learning machines if you can get their interest engaged.

Kids learned their first language from their environment, and you'll have more success if your kids are surrounded with their next language as much as possible. Many bookstores sell vocabulary books with little cut-out labels to put on items around the house that give the name of that item in the new language. Depending on your child’s age, look for children’s books in the new language. Most of all, try to find something that engages something he or she is already interested in. For example, if you have a kid who is learning Spanish and who is also nuts about cars, consider a subscription to a Spanish-language magazine about cars or racing. Foreign language magazines are appearing more and more frequently in larger bookstores and better newsstands, and subscriptions can also be purchased on the Internet.