Different ways of teaching baby languages

[lzp11]

Hi

I'm fairly new to this forum and looking for some advice about teaching my 10 month old DD a second language. 
I wish I was fluent in a second language myself, and would teach her by simply speaking that language at home.  Unfortunately I'm nowhere near fluent, although I do speak reasonable Spanish and very rusty French.  I'm planning in starting with Spanish as this is my better language.

I've ordered a few DVDs with music and songs etc - just waiting for them to arrive.

My question is about the best way to teach her. I'm sure that it's not enough to just play the DVDs!   If I was fluent then I could just speak to her but presumably this needs to be most (all) of the time for her to learn the language well.  Is there any benefit from simply talking to her (in imperfect Spanish) for an short while each day or is this not enough?  What about if it was only once or twice a week?  Is this too little to have much benefit?

Is it better to combine with written spanish words (e.g. I could download some of the LR spanish files) but I don't want to overload her as we are just working on reading English words.  Or is this not a problem?  I can download some of the LR spanish files especially the YBCR ones as we have these DVDs too.  But there is obviously a bit different between learning to speak a language and just a few words.

I'd love to hear what has worked for anyone else in a similar situation.  I may be hoping for too much - I don't want to be unrealistic and above all want to keep it fun.

Thanks very much!

[Joha]

Hi lzp11!

At your baby's age what is more important is exposure. The more she listens to people speaking in Spanish, the more she will understand what is going on and you can reinforce with the LR files that you can dowload here and your own vocabulary. She would love to see you know the words too, Even if you don't know the language the advantage is that they get familiar with the language and later on it will be much easier to pick up the language and probably they will not have an accent because they were exposed from an early age. Some studies state that a baby can learn up to 5 languages without getting confused. Off course it would be much better if you could speak fluently to your baby in the language that you want to teach, but if not possible, it will not hurt to expose her to it. I do speak Spanish and my husband English, but we are exposing our baby to Mandarin and German too, languages that we don't speak. We just do German Mondays and Wednesdays and Mandarin on Tuesdays and Thursdays.


There was a very good discussion in the forum with different points of view and it may guide you a bit too

http://forum.brillkids.com/teaching-your-child-signing-speaking-foreign-languages/recent-discoveries-on-babies'-language-learning-abilities/15/

Hope this helps a little bit

[wenjonggal]

I agree with Joha. In fact I agree with her for any age. I have been trying to teach my son mandarin as I learn it myself, and it is going very well I think. He certainly isn’t fluent in mandarin, but he can sing songs, knows many words and phrases, can count to ten and today we were playing Kingka game with our Chinese tutor (just a native mandarin speaker who comes to our house for about an hour or so once a week) and it was obvious that my son knows many chinese characters as well, saying the chinese pronunciation and matching the character to the corresponding photo with no difficulty.

I just try to surround him with lots of different chinese media: dvds both for learning chinese and actual shows in chinese, music cds, stories on his mp3 player, books together with cds that we listen to and follow along, flashcards... and we try to learn things from our tutor that I can use throughout the week, like “mama washes your face, mama washes your tummy, mama washes your hands...” “put on your shirt, put on your pants, put on your shoes...” “where is baby? I can’t see baby! I’m looking for baby but I can’t find him! Is he here? No! Is he there? No! Is he under the table? No! Is he behind the chair? No! Oh! I found baby! He is here!” etc... very simple so I’m not making a lot of syntax mistakes, but still we are doing very interactive use of the language in our daily life. We hide toy animals and name them as we find them etc.

We are doing English, French and Chinese. English is my mother tongue, French I learned as a teenager/young adult, and Chinese I just started at perhaps 43 yrs old! So far it is going great. Keep at it! Don’t worry! they are like sponges, and really don’t seem to mix things up, except to put words that they know into sentences of another language they are learning when they are missing the vocab in the new language. We all do that... that is why in English we say “pizza”! Have lots of fun, even if you aren’t perfect yourself! And with other input, your Spanish will improve too!

[evachong]

that's mean a small baby we can teach them 5 different languages , but how to do with the time table of teaching these different languages. could it be each days different language, say monday - mandarin; tuesday- english; wednesday- Deutch; thursday-Korean languages and so on .... please advise. I am actually preparing the flash card to my july's baby. 

[hypatia]

It's great that you can prepare material and read about early education before baby arrives.. I 'wasted' so much time doing this during my baby's naps.. these days i read less and do a lot more..

[evachong]

yap... hopefully that somebody can give me advice on the languages teaching and more.... thanks

[Baining]

Hi!  We did not have the luxury of knowing a second language either.  I noticed with my boys that DVD's really helped with pronunciation which is really showing now, 6 and 8. However you are right they will not get too far on videos alone!  I really suggest learning together and having a lot of fun with the language you choose which sounds like Spanish.  There are many methods that I find the boys really love like Total Physical Response and Word Association. Also you have no choice but to mix Spanish and English together since you are not fluent.  Start small, when you learn a word use it as much as you can i.e. replace thank you for Gracias as much as you can. I suggest having several picture word books around so they can look through them when they want.  Laugh at yourself when you make mistakes and make it an enjoyable experience.  Don't give up!  Remember the goal is for them to continue learning this language when you are not around!  So make them love it! I have seen that little pim is in Spanish and there are some Brainy Baby Spanish DVD's you might want to check out.
Baining
mandarinkids.wordpress.com

[laughingwater]

I think it is very helpful to have contact with someone who is fluent in the language you are teaching. Maybe try to find a play group that speaks the language. I am teaching my daughter Spanish and I don't speak it. We started with DVDs and LR, then we joined a Spanish music class and she learnt some songs and we have CDs of the songs that we listen to. I could not afford to continue with the Spanish class, so now we go to the Spanish grocery store and she can hear Spanish and interact with Spanish speakers. I am trying to also reinforce what she has learnt with my limited Spanish knowledge.

[Joha]

that's mean a small baby we can teach them 5 different languages , but how to do with the time table of teaching these different languages. could it be each days different language, say monday - mandarin; tuesday- english; wednesday- Deutch; thursday-Korean languages and so on .... please advise. I am actually preparing the flash card to my july's baby. 

Well, I think it really depends on your time to teach and if you are fluent or not in those languages. In my case, we speak and teach her stuff in English and Spanish through the day, everyday. Then on the other days we teach the other languages. As I mentioned before we did one language two days and then the other language the other two. I would love to have my dd learn French, but I just haven't found the time to expose her to it. Again, do as much as you can without killing yourself. Keep on kind that if you stress about it your baby will feel it. This whole experiences is about joy, for you and your baby! My advice will be to pick the three main languages you would like your baby to learn and once you are teaching those see if you can add one more.

Hope this helps 

[lzp11]

Thanks very much everyone for all your helpful replies.
I'm trying to work on a programme that will work for us and that I can keep going over time.  I work for three days a week and am back too late in the evening to do any kind of learning (she is usually in bed by the time I am home!).

It would be great to have contact with bilingual families or playgroups although I don't think we will have time to go just at the moment.

Does anyone have any thoughts about how helpful it is for me to 'chat' to my daughter for say an hour or so a couple of times a week? (saying things like "what are you doing?" "what colour is that...?" "this animal is a lion" etc etc.)  Because she is so young at the moment, the level of language that I would need to speak is quite simple and straightforward.  Do you think she be resistant or confused by this?  Or will it just seem normal after a while?  I could then reinforce pronounciation with DVDs and LR files.

I think i would be hoping for two additional languages over time, if we are able to do so (probably spanish and french).  But it is hard to prioritise everything!! I'm also aware of the value of music, physical activity, reading, maths etc etc etc!!  I need an extra 2 or 3 days a week, then maybe we would fit everything in.

Thanks again! 

[Baining]

That is a great idea to chat with your daughter about simple things.  It will not be wasted, really it is simple and really I would just do it as much as you could or that you could remember to do it.  That is usually my problem, I forget! 

[wenjonggal]

Does anyone have any thoughts about how helpful it is for me to 'chat' to my daughter for say an hour or so a couple of times a week? (saying things like "what are you doing?" "what colour is that...?" "this animal is a lion" etc etc.)  Because she is so young at the moment, the level of language that I would need to speak is quite simple and straightforward.  Do you think she be resistant or confused by this?  Or will it just seem normal after a while?  I could then reinforce pronounciation with DVDs and LR files.
 

This would be GREAT! If you can do that, it is probably a perfect way to start... after all, babies learn so much more from interaction, especially within a context, than dvds or flashcards (though of course the effectiveness of both those are increased by interaction with the parents). This won’t make your child bilingual as in fluent, but it is what we are doing in Chinese (which I am just learning), and I am constantly surprised by how much my son knows in Chinese (especially compared to kids who go to a special Saturday Chinese class once a week).

You don’t need ANY extra time to chat like this... point out things you know the names of when you shop for food, while you are eating dinner, while getting dressed, washing her body etc... and of course we speak to our own children in their fist language in short simple phrases and point out simple objects etc all the time, not in huge long sentences nor just with flashcards. I point out different vehicles while walking down the street with the stroller: “qi che! kan kan qi che! Da da gong gong qi che! Xiao hong se de zi xing che!” (car! look at the car! Big big bus! Little red bike!) And then point out the same things in a board book at home.

You’ll do great, and it will be a great step forward for later in classes, or with native speakers! And you are not alone. Few of us are unemployed stay at home moms who can dedicate whole days to foreign language instruction: even the homeschoolers often have older kids, or businesses etc that take a lot of time... any  language engagement is a step above none! Have lots of fun! And maybe your own language skills (like my previously nonexistent Chinese) will improve a lot too!

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