• Home
  • Our Shop
  • About Us
    • About MKB
    • Our Shop
    • MKB Board
    • Editorial Board and MKB Administrators
    • Our Contributors
    • For Bloggers: Join MKB
    • Books and Products from Our Members
    • Cultural Resources
    • Contact Us
  • Product Promotion Services
  • Blog Hops & Series
    • Holidays Around the World
      • Martin Luther King Day
      • Chinese New Year
      • Purim
      • Passover
      • Easter Around the World
      • Ramadan
      • Hajj (Eid al Adha)
      • Rosh Hashanah
      • Day of the Dead
      • Diwali
      • Hanukkah
      • Christmas in Different Lands
    • Heritage Months
      • Black History Month
      • Women’s History Month
      • Asian-Pacific Islander Heritage Month
      • Middle Eastern and North African Heritage Month
      • Hispanic Heritage Month
      • Native American Heritage Month
    • Blogging Carnivals
    • Creative Kids Culture Blog Hop
    • Global Learning for Kids
  • Resources for Raising Global Citizens
  • Privacy Policy

Multicultural Kid Blogs

For families and educators raising world citizens, through arts, activities, crafts, food, language, and love.

6 Tips to Motivate and Support Your School-Age Bilingual Child

September 19, 2016 by Galina Nikitina

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmailby feather

6-tips-to-motivate-bilingual-child-by-galina-nikitina

Not that long ago you were cuddling a newborn baby. A few years flew by and now you begin to realize that your bilingual baby is no longer a baby and has friends of his own. He/she is slowly detaching from you and losing any interest and/or opportunity to speak your language.

You blame yourself for speaking too little to your child, for not reading to him enough, for being exhausted and taking time for yourself. You think about how you probably should have stayed with him since you were the only language speaker. You can not stop thinking about it.

What can you do now that your child has started school?

1. Be realistic.

Yes, you are right. You should have spoken more and read more to your child while he was younger… you should …you should … don’t we like to blame ourselves for everything?  It is time to stop and evaluate the results, and they are good no matter how they may seem at this point. Even if your child only understands the language, you did what you could within your particular family setting. You child received a very important base for continual learning of the language. Now you must guide him to further his learning, just as you would with sports, music and other after school activities. You may need other people’s help with this task, such as language teachers and native speakers.

2. Be a good language model for your child.

Keep speaking your heritage language as often as possible.  Keep speaking to your child, even if he does not respond to you. Speak to him in your language no matter where you are and who is around.  He needs to know that it matters to you, that you care, and that there is nothing bad in being different from others and speaking a different language.

3. Be enthusiastic about your child’s  success and don’t pay attention to the failures.

Positive attitude really helps in everything we do!

4. Help your bilingual child to build vocabulary.

I remember how desperate I felt when I lived in a country where I did not speak the language. The moment I learned some words I started experimenting with them. Your child will do it, too, if given the opportunity. Here are some tools for vocabulary building:

  • TV/Media/Games in the Minority Language – Your child wants to watch TV, view cartoons, or play games for an extra hour. Sure, why not? Have your child watch or play these things in your language. At least there will be some benefits from it.
  • Set Your Minority Language as the Device’s Default Language – Changing the language of the equipment your child has access to allow extra practice.
  • Radio – Listen to the kids radio in your language, and find age appropriate programs that interest your child.
  • Sticky Notes – Stick notes with words and sentences written in your language on the kitchen and bathroom cabinets and on walls in your child’s room. You can use them to label objects, too. Make it a game. Ask your child to find all words starting with a particular letter. Depending on the child’s language level, you can either write posted notes yourself, ask him to do it, or label them together. Experiment! Invent a game that interests your child.
  • Kid’s Magazines – It might be expensive to have them delivered from abroad, but don’t be put off by the shipping costs. If  you compare subscription cost  to meals out, you will see it’s not that bad. Have a couple of meals at home instead of going out to save money. Also, some magazines offer an online subscription and have website with activities.

5. Meet with others who speak your language.

  • Minority Language Speakers – Look for people living in your city who speak your language. In the process you may end up enjoying a nice chat or finding friends for yourself and your child. Look for local parent groups on Facebook, and check with a local embassy, too.
  • Au pair – If you have the opportunity, hire an au pair who would be happy to support your child’s minority language while studying a community language in her free time.
  • Student – You can invite to dinner a student who speaks your language. Check with a local university to see if they can help put you contact with someone.
  • Travel to Your Heritage Language Country – This really helps to motivate your child to speak your language. The first time I visited my home country with my kids they were 4 and 6 years old. It was an experience they continue to recall and look forward to repeating again.

6. Find a language teacher.

  • Bilingual School/Foreign Language School – Check if there is a local bilingual school or a school that teaches your minority language as a foreign language.
  • Private Tutor – I know parents who are excellent in math yet still hire a private tutor for their child. Why? More often than not a child will listen more to another person besides a parent and will not complain or try to find excuses as much.
  • Weekend School – Besides teaching minority languages, these schools often include culture programs of the heritage country, too.
  • Language Teacher Online – Don’t forget what modern technology can do for your bilingual child. The language teacher can be anywhere on the earth thanks to video calling!

I hope these tips will help you support your bilingual child in learning his heritage language. You are welcome to share your ideas in the comment section below. Good luck!

 

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmailby feather
The following two tabs change content below.
  • Bio
  • Latest Posts
My Twitter profileMy Facebook profileMy Google+ profileMy Instagram profileMy Pinterest profileMy YouTube channel

Galina Nikitina

Galina Nikitina is a multilingual mother, who is successfully raising trilingual children in Italian, Russian and English. She is passionate about helping other parents, who are bringing up their children in more than one language. Galina blogs at Raising a Trilingual Child
My Twitter profileMy Facebook profileMy Google+ profileMy Instagram profileMy Pinterest profileMy YouTube channel

Latest posts by Galina Nikitina (see all)

  • 6 Tips to Motivate and Support Your School-Age Bilingual Child - September 19, 2016
  • Creative Kids Culture Blog Hop #37: Bilingual Kids: Reading and Writing - March 20, 2016
  • How does a Person become Multilingual? When does the Language Learning start? - October 10, 2014

Filed Under: Multilingualism, Teaching Languages Tagged With: bilingualism, multilingualism, parenting

Subscribe to our mailing list

* indicates required

Comments

  1. Amanda says

    September 21, 2016 at 2:36 am

    These are great tips. Meeting up with others who speak your language is definitely a great way to use the language first hand and make new friends!

  2. Leanna says

    September 26, 2016 at 10:19 pm

    These are great tips! My oldest is 6, and it’s so much different trying to motivate him now than it was when he was younger. This post is really helpful!

Follow Us!

Follow Us on FacebookFollow Us on Google+Follow Us on TwitterFollow Us on PinterestFollow Us on RSSFollow Us on Instagram

Anti-Bullying Resource FREE Download

Enter your email address:

Delivered by FeedBurner

Grab Our Button!

grab button for Multicultural Kid Blogs
<div class="multicultural-kid-blogs-button" style="width: 200px; margin: 0 auto;"> <a href="https://multiculturalkidblogs.com/" rel="nofollow"> <img src="https://multiculturalkidblogs.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/button-take-3.jpg" alt="Multicultural Kid Blogs" width="200" height="200" /> </a> </div>
Multicultural Children's Book Day Co-Host

Archives

Copyright © 2023 · Lifestyle Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in

This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish.Accept Read More
Privacy & Cookies Policy

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary
Always Enabled
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Non-necessary
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
SAVE & ACCEPT