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I want to teach my 4 1/2 year old son english..
Thread poster: Dipalimatkar
Samuel Murray
Samuel Murray  Identity Verified
Netherlands
Local time: 20:04
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
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Let the speech therapist decide Jul 11, 2010

Katalin Horvath McClure wrote:
Samuel wrote:
And get him a speech therapist (if you can afford it).

I respectfully disagree. Speech therapy is for people (children) who are unable to formulate sounds correctly by the age it is typically expected.


Well, let the speech therapist decide if the child needs therapy.


 
Katalin Horváth McClure
Katalin Horváth McClure  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 15:04
Member (2002)
English to Hungarian
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Not knowing the language is not a disorder, Samuel Jul 12, 2010

This article explains what speech therapy is, and what it is for:

http://kidshealth.org/parent/system/ill/speech_therapy.html

If the child has no problem communicating in his native language, does not show any problems with hearing and articulating sounds at the level of clarity expected at his age, if there are no developmental issues, then there is n
... See more
This article explains what speech therapy is, and what it is for:

http://kidshealth.org/parent/system/ill/speech_therapy.html

If the child has no problem communicating in his native language, does not show any problems with hearing and articulating sounds at the level of clarity expected at his age, if there are no developmental issues, then there is no need for speech therapy.
Even if it is a child who is native English, at age 5 it is still OK to have pronunciation issues with certain sounds. I don't have the chart at hand, but I do remember there were some consonants where correct pronunciation was not expected until age 7 or 8 (for boys).

Speech therapists are not ESL teachers. They are not trained to teach English as a second language, or interact with a child whose language is not English. It could be frustrating for both parties, and a total waste of resources.

I suggest to take him to playgrounds, playgroups, community events for children as much as possible, since he is only starting school next year. Let him interact with other children, but do support him. He will be fine, he will be able to learn English fluently very quickly. His learning will speed up even more, once he starts school.

Katalin

[Edited at 2010-07-12 02:55 GMT]
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3ADE shadab
3ADE shadab
Local time: 00:34
Member (2008)
Hindi to English
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Same situation with my kid. Jul 12, 2010

As I am based in India, but would like my kid to speak fluently in English. Please do suggest something if you can.

 
Ulrike H
Ulrike H
Local time: 20:04
English to German
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Just another example... Jul 12, 2010

My dad's neighbours are from Canada, and their daughter is just about your son's age. Her mother speaks very little German, and while her father speaks German well, he also only speaks English to his daughter. So for a while the girl spoke only English - but once she started going to daycare (I think she was about three years old), she picked up German very quickly, and speaks it now just as well as any German kid... She had heard some German before, of course, since she plays a lot with my litt... See more
My dad's neighbours are from Canada, and their daughter is just about your son's age. Her mother speaks very little German, and while her father speaks German well, he also only speaks English to his daughter. So for a while the girl spoke only English - but once she started going to daycare (I think she was about three years old), she picked up German very quickly, and speaks it now just as well as any German kid... She had heard some German before, of course, since she plays a lot with my little brother and her parents have some other German friends too, but her parents never did anything like speaking to her in German or getting a tutor - and she learned German quickly anyway...Collapse


 
bearbeeme
bearbeeme
United Kingdom
Helpful videos to expand vocabulary... Aug 22, 2017

Dipalimatkar wrote:

He watch english cartoons and understands it. what should I do to increase his vocabulary?

Can he be able to speak english fluently??


Hi, I've just started making videos for my own children, but we noticed they were getting a lot of views from India and Asia in general. With a little research, rather than kids from this areas watching for entertainment, they're watching to improve their English skills.

Here's a link to a very basic video on farm animal names and sounds:

https://youtu.be/5TlJNlB8YZQ

However, I plan on creating a series of English words and language for toddlers all over the world and would appreciate feedback. Apologies if this is the wrong place for this post.

Thanks
BearBeeMe


 
eyepod (X)
eyepod (X)  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 12:04
English to Spanish
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indigenous languages? Aug 23, 2017

If you respect your original culture and languages, I would be more concerned that your son will lose those languages.

[Edited at 2017-08-23 02:07 GMT]


 
Christine Andersen
Christine Andersen  Identity Verified
Denmark
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Danish to English
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Talk to the teachers Aug 23, 2017

Katalin Horváth McClure wrote:

I agree with those saying there is no need to worry too much about your son learning English - he will pick it up very fast.

I would suggest one thing though that nobody mentioned so far: when you select the preschool for him, make sure it is a loving, caring environment, and the teachers have experience, or are open to the idea of having a non-English speaking child in their class. This is very important because if the teacher thinks the child is dumb or disobedient when he does not follow directions, and punishes him for that (directly or indirectly), the child would unjustly suffer. The child may get scared, get lonely and start disliking school. A good teacher would make sure this does not happen, and support the child in his interactions with teachers and other kids.
If that support is there, you don't need to worry.

Katalin


My emphasis. Properly qualified teachers will know how to help and support, starting a positive spiral as your son learns more English, gets on in class and makes friends. Encourage him to keep up your Indian languages too if you can - the advantages of being multi-lingual are not always easy to define, but they far outweigh any problems if the problems are handled properly.

I was amazed on a visit to India at how my smatterings of Marathi and Hindi came back after lying dormant for 50 years... and my parents, who were fluent in Marathi, had a wonderful experience when they went back after 30 years - they could really talk to people as most tourists cannot. I was ten when I left India, and could remember quite a lot, but my younger sisters had lost it all. You will have to work at it with a five-year-old, but he will probably thank you later on.


 
Nikki Scott-Despaigne
Nikki Scott-Despaigne  Identity Verified
Local time: 20:04
French to English
Need motivates language learning Aug 23, 2017

Children are sponges and instinctive. They need to communicate to socialise. Have you ever seen kids meeting other kids with no language in common? They just get on with it and play. There can be some difficult patches as they are trying to find out how to fit in, but the other factors of context support the acquisition of a new language. The school setting will provide structure to the day and regularity. That helps speed the process. We are all motivated by need. Your little boy will go with t... See more
Children are sponges and instinctive. They need to communicate to socialise. Have you ever seen kids meeting other kids with no language in common? They just get on with it and play. There can be some difficult patches as they are trying to find out how to fit in, but the other factors of context support the acquisition of a new language. The school setting will provide structure to the day and regularity. That helps speed the process. We are all motivated by need. Your little boy will go with the flow. He will have no choice and as his need to communicate pushes him along, the other kids will pull him along!

With all due respect to whoever suggested a speech and language therapist/pathologist, don't bother. Language acquisition is largely motivated by social necessity; it is not a disorder. Learning a second language does not slow language acquisition either; that's a myth. If your son does turn out to need the support of a SL therapist, it will not be because he is learning a second language.
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Nikki Scott-Despaigne
Nikki Scott-Despaigne  Identity Verified
Local time: 20:04
French to English
Reading Aug 23, 2017

Tom in London wrote:

I don't know why this is, but children of a certain age up to about 10 just seem far more open to picking things up.

So don't worry about it!


Tom, you might find it interesting to read a little about the work of Noam Chomsky and ERic? Lenneberg and then follow on from there. A fair bit of work has been done on the notion of "critical age" for language learning.


 
Christine Andersen
Christine Andersen  Identity Verified
Denmark
Local time: 20:04
Member (2003)
Danish to English
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Take Chomsky with a good pinch of salt Aug 25, 2017

Nikki Scott-Despaigne wrote:

Tom in London wrote:

I don't know why this is, but children of a certain age up to about 10 just seem far more open to picking things up.

So don't worry about it!


Tom, you might find it interesting to read a little about the work of Noam Chomsky and ERic? Lenneberg and then follow on from there. A fair bit of work has been done on the notion of "critical age" for language learning.


He may be right up to a point, but his theories are being questioned, and things are probably not as clear-cut as many people would like. As with all psychological and cognitive processes, individual differences are so great that the theories may describe a trend, but they do not tell you much about a given individual.

It is true that there is a 'window' in early childhood for language learning, and adults struggle with a new language, while small children just pick them up. On the whole bilinguals and children brought up in multilingual communities do seem to learn languages more easily, but it is no guarantee.

There can be enormous differences between siblings, for instance. I think, however, that because I never actually stopped learning languages, I was still learning very much like a child when I arrived
in Copenhagen in my late 20s and had to sink or swim... Many Danes did not speak English then! Outside language classes, I simply listened, watched and worked out what was going on.

But my knowledge of German especially, and French helped.

Good luck with the little boy in Australia, and don't drop those Indian languages! They will be useful as well as fun when the young man grows up.


 
Kay Denney
Kay Denney  Identity Verified
France
Local time: 20:04
French to English
Nikki's right Aug 25, 2017

Nikki Scott-Despaigne wrote:

Children are sponges and instinctive. They need to communicate to socialise. Have you ever seen kids meeting other kids with no language in common? They just get on with it and play.



My kids met their cousin with whom they did not share a language, they learnt to say "look" "stop" and "come" and that was enough for hours of fun!

My daughter didn't speak a word of French before starting nursery school, and didn't say a word for her whole first term. As the majority of children were not French in her class, the teacher had plenty of experience and just let her take her time. Once she started speaking French she spoke better than her older brother.


 
Nikki Scott-Despaigne
Nikki Scott-Despaigne  Identity Verified
Local time: 20:04
French to English
Chomsky and co. Aug 28, 2017

A good place to start and go on from there. Good reading on such subjects will be critical reading. Swallowing anything like that wholesale is no good. Like I said, if you're into it, you can read about it and Chomsky and co will inevitably rear their heads somewhere. I wasn't suggesting read it, accept it; far from it! Haha!

Christine, yes, of course Chomsky has been criticised, quite rightly so too. It's pretty dated and now goes back way more than 40 years. Also, he has gone back
... See more
A good place to start and go on from there. Good reading on such subjects will be critical reading. Swallowing anything like that wholesale is no good. Like I said, if you're into it, you can read about it and Chomsky and co will inevitably rear their heads somewhere. I wasn't suggesting read it, accept it; far from it! Haha!

Christine, yes, of course Chomsky has been criticised, quite rightly so too. It's pretty dated and now goes back way more than 40 years. Also, he has gone back on much of his initial work and some of his arguments are contradictary, then and now. But it can be a good starting point for further reading if one is into this sort of thing. Yes, lots of inter- and intra-individual differences from a cognitive point of view, and others too of course!

The fact remains that kids generally pick up languages really easily when they need to socialise and that the younger that happens, the better. I also agree that "lost" language skills can return quite quickly in certain situations. You remeber stuff you didn't even know you knew!

[Edited at 2017-08-28 18:11 GMT]
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I want to teach my 4 1/2 year old son english..






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