❝One language sets you in a corridor for life. Two languages open every door along the way. ❞
Frank Smith
This page contains affiliate links meaning I may earn a commission if you use them. I only recommend products I use and honestly trust. For more info read the full disclosure.
I must be honest and confess that I have not succeeded teaching a foreign language to my own kids!
I almost did with my older daughter. She can understand some French but with the younger ones, I just got lazy and was not enough persistent talking French with them!
My family is French so that means they cannot communicate with some cousins, grandma, and friends. I know it is one of my biggest mistakes as a mom. So here is what I can share! sometimes we learn most from what we did not do right…
- Read about it and get ideas from others!
- Get into a community so they can practice the language. What made it more difficult for me to be persistent is when we had their friends over as I thought it was quite rude to talk another language near guest so as often as we had friends in the house, it was no French at home.
Some great links I wish to share about teaching a foreign language to kids:
A great tool I found is this site, where you can get info on language milestones, tips, find other families around you to create a community talking same languages… and interesting statistics about bilingual families in USA can be found here.
Here is an interesting article about “Bilingual Brains – Smarter & Faster”.
Finally, here you can find questions and answers about bilingual kids.
5 Scientific Facts about Bilingual Children:
Here are some interesting facts that research has uncovered regarding bilingual children:
1. They develop better social skills (based on A 2015 University of Chicago study led by Professor Boaz Keysar)
2. Learning more than one language develops multi-tasking skills and promotes cognitive functioning (based on Research at the Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences at the University of Washington)
3. They are better listeners (based on A neuroscience study led by Dr.Krizman of Northwestern)
4. Bilinguals have denser gray matter than monolinguals in certain regions of their brains (based on An article published by Mechelli A, Crinion JT, Noppeney U, et al. in 2004)
5. Being bilingual delays the onset of dementia, and consequently Alzheimer’s disease, by around 4 years (based on a 2007 study published by Ellen Bialystok)
Source: https://blog.kidbo.co/2017/02/5-facts-bilingual-children-need-know/
8 BILINGUAL Games that can help teach a foreign language (most Spanish):
LeapFrog Learning Friends 100 Words Book, for age 18 months -Words, songs and instructions can be heard in both English and Spanish for a full bilingual experience
Alphabet Blocks Toys For Toddlers – Jumbo Bilingual For 2 Year Olds
Illustrated Spanish to English Flash Cards
Play game KLOO in any language
Spanish Bingo Learning Board Game Ages 4 and Up
Bilingual Teach and Talk Tablet
Spanish Bingo Game for Kids 24 Players Home School Party Game
I hope you found this article interesting, and that it will help you for your next purchase!
I invite you to check also article about “Why and how to teach our kids FLEXIBLE THINKING?”
You can SUBSCRIBE HERE to receive future posts to your mailbox and follow me on Pinterest.
Being bilingual is such an important skill in the workforce! Great game suggestions!
I’m actually trying to teach my daughter Korean! We are using an app called Duolingo and it is very helpful! Has anyone else tried it out?
I did i actually!!
My son and I learn a foreign language every day, because it is very important for his future. Thanks for your article!