22/04/2023
PARENTING MASTER A1: Raising a bilingual child (part one).
In african countries, we are fond of saying: "english is a God given skill, if you know, you know, if you don't, you won't". Since parents are the former teachers of a child, we're gathered about 5 tips for today, to help them raise bilingual babies.
1- Speak baby language
Every single effective communication leans on a shared language background. As your babe still doesn't have any language experience, is up to you to learn and speak his own.
It is widely acknowledged that children learn from mimicking the adults around. They also learn using their senses while playing, touching, smelling, singing/dancing and feeling. So don't mind explaining anything to them, just gamify the learning process. The childlike approach, is the way to go.
For example: for a child to learn the difference between hot and cold, you can be letting him touch cold water, and says out: "it is cold", also some hot water and say: "it is hot", as you are bathing him.
have him touch the soap for example a just pronounce the word soap. If he's a yearling, he'll try to repeat the words, and will understand the difference. if He's less than a year, you won't need to repeat the words more than twice.
2- Be a purpose-driven coach.
Don't be giving your child words purposelessly, but proceed according to real live situation based theme. Some themes: "in the bathroom" / "on the way to sleep" and so on and so forth.
3- One parent, one main language.
Each face at home is a peerless experience for a child, as he remembers each and everyone according to what he usually feels/lives with that person. This being said, it's very important that each parent / Childminder be assigned with a specific language, which he regularly speaks to the child, accordingly. As time goes by, the newborn will naturally be able to differenciate the languages.
4- 3 days for a language.
Even though parents should be assigned different main languages, no being organized will just amount to stunting your kid to learn properly. Set 3 days for each language, for example:
from monday to wednesday mainly interacting with the child in french, from Thursday to saturday, we're mainly interacting with him in english, irrespective of wether the parent/childcarer in charge is there or not. However avoid interacting with the shaver in two different languages a day.
5- Trust your toddler utter genius.
When it comes to fast learning skills, we (adults) are no match for our little ones. Times and again, we are underestimating them based on our own shortcomings. Children really enjoy learning new skills and they are sharp in remembering them far better than we do. Observe, get what he shows interest in, but don't underestimate his abilities.
We've come to the end of our 5 first tips to raising a bilingual baby, we are coming back at it next weekend for the french version.
We hope this has been helpful, tell us in the comment section, what you think about it. Remember to like and to subscribe so, you won't missed the next five tips on the same topic.
Don't you forget, online english classes are starting on the 3rd.
You can subscribe from monday on, or tell a friend to.
Here is your vocabulary (if there is a word you didn't understand, and you didn't find in the vocabulary, kindly mention it in the comment section):