Wow, what a useful post! Helped me sort out a lot of things I’ve been struggling with for a long time. I particularly appreciate the ‘bad institutions’ section.
Btw, do you have any tips on how to teach language to small kids?
I don’t feel qualified to give advice on teaching a language to small kids, although I do have a few thoughts. Please take them with a grain of salt, as I’ve never done this.
I’m assuming you mean your kids, not kids in a classroom? If this is the case:
It seems like language interaction is important for kids, so I’m skeptical of the “having them watch cartoons in TL instead of NL” approach, unless they already have a solid understanding of the language.
Do you speak this language yourself? If so, you could try to increasingly only speak this language with your kid. E.g., my cousins grew up strictly speaking French with their mother, German with their father, and English in school. Now they’re fully fluent in all 3.
If you don’t speak the language yourself, I’d bet it’ll be much harder to make it happen. You could send them to private lessons (depending on age and disposition). You could also try to hire a caretaker/nanny (again depending on age) that speaks the TL and is willing to speak with the kid in that language. I knew a couple of people who spoke decent Spanish because they had a Spanish-speaking nanny growing up.
That’s all I could think of. That said, I think a quick Google/YouTube search might uncover much more valuable guidance on this!
Wow, what a useful post! Helped me sort out a lot of things I’ve been struggling with for a long time. I particularly appreciate the ‘bad institutions’ section.
Btw, do you have any tips on how to teach language to small kids?
Glad it was useful!
I don’t feel qualified to give advice on teaching a language to small kids, although I do have a few thoughts. Please take them with a grain of salt, as I’ve never done this.
I’m assuming you mean your kids, not kids in a classroom? If this is the case:
It seems like language interaction is important for kids, so I’m skeptical of the “having them watch cartoons in TL instead of NL” approach, unless they already have a solid understanding of the language.
Do you speak this language yourself? If so, you could try to increasingly only speak this language with your kid. E.g., my cousins grew up strictly speaking French with their mother, German with their father, and English in school. Now they’re fully fluent in all 3.
If you don’t speak the language yourself, I’d bet it’ll be much harder to make it happen. You could send them to private lessons (depending on age and disposition). You could also try to hire a caretaker/nanny (again depending on age) that speaks the TL and is willing to speak with the kid in that language. I knew a couple of people who spoke decent Spanish because they had a Spanish-speaking nanny growing up.
That’s all I could think of. That said, I think a quick Google/YouTube search might uncover much more valuable guidance on this!