I'm keen to teach my daughter French and Spanish, and have been mainly using Little Pim, Brainy baby Spanish, and LR spanish files so far.
I'm most keen for her to learn to speak and understand the languages (rather than read them), as we are focussing at the moment on learning to read in English. Also, I think that understanding and developing an accent are some of the most difficult skills, which are most easily learned by very young children.
I speak rusty Spanish and school French, and have also been trying to talk to my daughter, but I'm probably not consistent or confident enough. There are some language classes locally for both languages, but they don't take children until the age of 3, which I don't think is early enough.
So, I've been wondering about taking language classes myself at home (starting with spanish as I speak this the best), with my daughter in the room, so that she naturally picks up what we are talking about. She seems to pick up everything else that I say!! I was hoping to ask the teacher to focus on subjects that are of interest to her and we can include her in the lesson but just informally to minimise pressure. I would also have more focus about what to do with her in between lessons. She'd get the benefit of hearing a genuine native speaker. BUT, lessons are just too expensive on a one-to-one basis in the UK.
Anyway, I did an internet search and found that you can actually have language lessons via Skype, which are much more cost effective, with native speakers from Latin America (spanish) or Africa (French). I thought that's quite amazing really! I quite liked the sound of the following website, because it seems like it's a social enterprise supporting developing countries, rather than a purely profit making organisation:
www.glovico.orgI'm not exactly sure how easy it would be to use Skype with a 2-year old running around the room, and whether it would be too abstract for her.
Has anyone done anything like this? Any recommendations for online teachers / organisation or how to make this work?
Thanks!
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