Top Tips to Help Your Child Learn a New Language

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There are many advantages to learning a second language for children. It allows them to engage with more people as they go through their lives, improves their career prospects and generally just boosts their understanding of other countries and cultures. It can be quite a challenging pursuit at any age, but childhood is the perfect time to learn new skills. 

If your child has started learning a new language at school, you might be wondering how you can help them, especially if you don’t know how to speak the language yourself. However, there are lots of things you can do to support your child’s learning, as explored below by a junior school in Surrey. 

 

Start by labelling all of the frequently used items around your home in the foreign language so that your child becomes familiar with different nouns. Frequent exposure to the language will really helping them with their basic vocabulary and eventually they will be able to include these words in their written or verbal communication. You could even start asking your child to respond to simply questions with answers in the language they are learning too. Any way that you are able to slip bits of learning a new language into every day life will really help as it will become second nature to your child in every day tasks.   

 

You could try and find a movie in the language that your child is learning, which will allow them to hear the language used in casual conversation. At first they will need subtitles but eventually, as their comprehension improves, they will be able to turn them off. Foreign music is also a good way to help your child familiarise themselves with the language. Other fun options for learning a new language are apps, online games and even books. 

 

It is however important to understand that little and often is a good approach when it comes to learning a language. If your child studies the language for several hours once a week, they will likely forget most of what they have learnt by the time they come to it again the week after. Instead, they should spend small chunks of time each day refreshing their memory of different words and phrases.

You never know you may find that helping your child learn a new language inspires you to learn a new language too! Personally I have always been fascinated by being able to speak different languages and would love to learn a few languages and sign language too! 

Can you speak multiple languages or are there any languages you would love to learn? Let me know in the comments below. 

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**This is a collaborative post.**