LR for 2 languages CONCURRENTLY?

[thechilibuddy]

Hi all,

I wanted to know if people have tried teaching 2 languages consecutively?

We are an English speaking household so LO's native language is in English. We want her to learn Mandarin and so have started lessons for that. But i also panther to start learning to read in Chinese.

Wondering how confusing it would be to them to do languages at the same time? Like if we learnt "nose" both in Chinese and in English...

or tried using the same software to teach her both English and Chinese at the same time?

[minmin]

Hi, I have been doing Chinese curriculum and English curriculum with my LO ever since he was 3-4 months old. Now he is 19 months old and we are still doing LR as I repeated semester 1 again. We speak both Chinese and English at home. I was afraid that I would bore him with the same pictures and videos as they are the same in both curriculum, so what I did was, I started with English first and after about 14 lessons, then only I started Chinese. I can say that he is not confused and he is learning both languages at the same time. Hope this helps.

[thechilibuddy]

Thanks, thats an idea - to use the same stuff but maybe wait a while later to reintroduce it in the 2nd language.

If you natural/home language is English, would you then spend more time focused on Chinese since I presume logically, the child would pick up English just by home usage as well or would you put equal time to it?

[ELeducation]

Several people in other threads have mentioned starting LR in the second language a few weeks after starting with the first language, as the previous poster suggested. You could also try changing out the pictures if she's bored of seeing the same visuals.

To answer your original question: teaching both languages at the same time will not be confusing to her Remember, many people around the world learn 2 or more languages at a time without issues, so I wouldn't worry about that too much.  

I wouldn't say we are strictly OPOL (one parent one language) in our house, but we do try to stick to one language at a time.  By this, I mean that I don't say "nose" followed by "nariz" or vice versa.  I speak to her mostly in Spanish, and my husband speaks to her mostly in English.  We just try not to "mix" the languages, although many times it happens anyway.  As a point of reference for you, she speaks equally well and spoke early in both languages.  She also reads in both languages but is definitely stronger in English simply due to the fact that we spent more time teaching reading in English.

We also taught and are still teaching our daughter ASL. This made learning both languages seamless for her. You most definitely do NOT have to teach ASL in order to teach your child multiple other languages!     I'm just saying that it helped facilitate things for us, or at least it showed us that she understood from very early on. We used it as a sort of bridge between the languages.  For example, she would see me sign the word "milk" while saying "leche", and later on, she would see my husband sign the word "milk" while saying "milk." Does that make sense?  Now, we're using ASL as a bridge for other languages too, as we've just introduced Chinese and French.

If you're looking for resources in addition to LR Chinese, I started a topic not too long ago about this very thing, and I received some great replies.  Some of the suggestions included:
Baby Learns Chinese
Wink to Learn Chinese (we've used in Spanish)
Little Pim Chinese (we've used in Spanish and a bit in French)

Anyway, I hope this is helpful!  Good luck on your EL journey!

[thechilibuddy]

Great, we do ASL at home too. In fact thats where we started as an English speaking family. Its a good idea to keep using the ASL signs with the Chinese words to help her bridge the gap.

How did you use Baby Learns Chinese/PIM DVDs in your own program at home? We have the DVDs and the flashcards... I'm using the cards like Doman suggests, but stumped as to how many times to show which chapters (introduction or review) as we go along.

[Orsi26]

Teaching 2 or more languages is great. If you use flashcards, you have to do the same thing as you do with a normal reading program (3 times a day for 5 days - although it can be done by only 2 times a day)
One thing to keep in mind though to keep the 2 language reading sessions min. 30 minutes apart, otherwise they can get mixed up in the little head. (The brain deducts the rules of reading from the cards, and since languages use different rules for pronunciation it can mix ) This is why it's a good idea to have "language lessons" if a parent doesn't speak the language fluently.

[minmin]

Speaking from my experience with my daughter (just turned 4 recently), I find that the more time you spend on a language, the better they are at that language. We speak both English and Chinese at home, but we often uses English more than Chinese at home, so she speaks better in English than in Chinese. Same goes to reading as I let her read more English books than Chinese. Our priority is English, then Chinese. I have been using LR with her since she was 9 months old. I started with English and see that she can pay attention, so I bought Chinese curriculum 2 months later. I also started Wink to Learn Malay and Japanese when she was 1 to 1 1/2 years old. Later around 20 months old, I introduced LR in Japanese (translated the LR curriculum myself).

I can't really do the one parent one language method as my husband is only home at night and most of the time only speak in English to her (he always forget to speak in Japanese or Malay). I am with her most of the time, so I make a schedule like Mon, Wed, Fri, Sun - I use Chinese and Japanese (like repeat Japanese after I say something in Chinese). Tue, Thu, Sat - I use English and Malay. It is hard to follow the schedule all the time, but just tried my best. Often ended up speaking in the language I am most comfortable with - English and Chinese. In terms of doing LR and Wink to Learn, I did all three or four languages everyday. Now that she is four years old, she is best in English, followed by Chinese. She can read and speak Japanese and Malay a little but progress is much slower than English and Chinese. I think that is because I did not emphasize so much on Japanese and Malay. Now that she can read well in English, I am spending more time on Chinese, Japanese and Malay.  

Hope this helps.

[thechilibuddy]

Wow, what a model for multi-language learning concurrently!

Do you mind sharing with me your daily schedule? Like when you'd do the lessons?

I guess technically I'm doing 3 languages: English, ASL and Chinese in that order. I'm just starting to wonder where there's time for Math, Music and Encyclopedic Knowledge (as per Doman) and then physical exercises.... It would be such a busy day!

[Orsi26]

If you wan to teach more languages and feel it will be too much, here's an idea:

set a time of day or a few days like mimin above to speak that language. It's not absolutely necessary to translate all the time, but you can if your child seems puzzled.

Or incorporate your schedule by adding language lesson sessions. I would be happy to help you set up a workable schedule - but would definitely need to know what exactly you do. PM me if you are interested!

I know a mother who taught 7 languages - as there are seven days in a week.  Her son is good at all of them (of course with reinforcing them in later years too, he is 23 now) my kids speak 4, one of them 5  so don't worry about 3

Have fun!

[ELeducation]

We don't have a set daily schedule; we simply have things that we try to do each day and things we try to get through each week. The one thing that happens everyday is reading lots and lots of books!

Although I'm not fluent in ASL, I sign as much as I can all throughout the day regardless of the language I'm speaking in or teaching. We do English and Spanish everyday and we alternate between French and Chinese throughout the week.

Here's a sample of what we do with French and Chinese:

On French days:
-listen to French children's music in the car
-watch a lesson from Watch and Learn French with Professor Toto in the morning
-play with an app in French on the iPad later in the day
-watch a short cartoon like Petit Ours Brun or a couple of Youtube videos with lessons in French in the evening that reinforce the lesson from Professor Toto
-try to use the same French vocabulary throughout the day as I can. (I am not fluent in French by any means, but I took several years in school and have acceptable pronunciation     )
-Read books to her in French and/or listen to audiobooks

On Mandarin Chinese days:
-watch Baby Learns Chinese in morning
-listen to children's songs in Chinese
-try to listen to a children's book reading in Chinese on YouTube after lunch
-watch mini lessons on YouTube (ie colors, shapes, numbers) after nap
Because I don't speak the language, it's difficult to try to reinforce since I do not have proper pronunciation skills. I am, however, going through the Pimsleur approach for Mandarin Chinese.

Again, these things aren't done each day…we just try to squeeze them in throughout the week. Even though it sounds like a lot, it really doesn't take up a huge chunk of time. We listen to music in the car, listen to an audiobook or read a book in the language which takes about 10 minutes, watch lessons on DVD which are kept at under 30 minutes, play apps on the iPad in the target language, and watch mini lessons on Youtube. Less than an hour a day…then you just reinforce where you can.  

BrillKids software makes it easy to fit in Reading, Music, Math, and EK - Doman style.  There are a ton of EK categories that you can download for free to use on LR software for EK, and it only takes a few minutes. Doing all of these programs everyday would not take up a very significant amount of time (probably less than 30 minutes). Of course, it's not necessary, but having the BK software does make things easier.  Personally, we only have Little Math, but looking back, I would have purchased LR and LMu a long time ago, and we will be making the purchase soon.


*Keep in mind we've only just seriously introduced these two languages in the past 2 weeks and are trying to get a good routine with them. I can say that we are already seeing progress though! After her first French day, she asked me for an apple in French at snack time.  After two Chinese days, she knows her basic colors and will point to things and say their color in Chinese. She also knows numbers 1-3



 
  

[minmin]

Hi thechilibuddy, just to share with you, my schedule is as following.

In the morning after breakfast and taking a bath, I will do Little Maths, Little Reader English and Chinese and Little Musician with my 19 months old son. Yes, those lessons are done back to back. I have been showing LM, LR and LMus ever since he was a few months old baby, so he has gotten used to the routine and could sit for nearly an hour to learn now. Then if I see that he can still concentrate, I will continue with Wink to Learn Malay which takes about 5 min. If not, I just go and cook and let him play freely and do Wink to Learn Malay after I am done preparing lunch. After that, we read some books. His sister is at the kindergarten in the morning, so I can concentrate on him the whole morning. Of course when he was younger, he couldn't sit down for so long, so I just break down the lessons into more sessions. Also, when he was younger, we only did 1 session everyday from each lesson for LR. 

In the afternoon after his sister is back, and after they have taken a nap, I will do LM, second session of LR English and Chinese, Country Course, Tweedle Wink, Japanese with both of them. I haven't really started Japanese with my son yet, so he usually just wanders off but is around to listen at least. I don't do any lessons with them on Saturday and Sunday. For maths, I started by showing real dot cards for about a year then only I started using LM.

Hope this helps you a little.

[thechilibuddy]

UPDATE! Here's a screen shot of what has been working for us.... Please excuse the other notes. Type A Mother alert.

We've had to switch up LR English and Chinese every 10 days of lessons to keep things interesting and different for her and also because Chinese isn't my first language so its much better the curriculum content teach her that than my questionable mandarin.

Of course, I dont' know how this will look when we have #2 join us in February... so another update then!

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