Speak Russian Like a Minion

With the exception of Japanese, all of the languages the children have been studying, in our house, have alphabets very similar to our own.  This summer, we've been playing around with some of the other alphabets out there - not to seriously, and really just for fun.

I'm not sure how it works for iPads or iPhones, but Amazon offers a number of free apps for Kindles.  Many of them have advertisements, or offers to buy products within them, but most are just straight forward, extended samples of the games.  They are great for when you just want to play around, or check something, like the Cyrillic alphabet, out.

So, besides alphabets, we've also been working through a number of different apps,  this summer. Which, is how we happened onto ABC. Russian Letters, from ABCgamesoft.

It's a very simple, flashcard style app for the Cyrillic alphabet.  I don't speak Russian, so I can't tell you if the pronunciations are any good or not - but I can tell you, the voice (of the ladybug?) sounds just like a Minion. 

It's had everybody in the room laughing, and repeating the words, and letter sounds aloud (a very important, but difficult to encourage step in language learning).

If you're looking to learn the Cyrillic alphabet, or just looking for a fun way to pass some time, and have a laugh, I can highly recommend this app.  I mean really, who doesn't want to speak Russian like a Minion?

Poppin Cookin' - Fun With Japanese

Several of the girls' favorite Youtubers have posted Popin Cookin' tutorials, and the girls have been very keen to give the Japanese candy mixes a try.   I noticed the kits weren't very expensive (in the $3.00 to $5.00 range) on Amazon, and ordered a bunch as a look-what-you-get-to-do-once-we-get-moved-in kind of incentive to lessen the bitterness of moving.

The kits come with everything you need to make tiny treats.  All you have to do is add water, and pop a few of them into the microwave, and just like that, you have adorable little cakes and candies.  The catch being, that all of the instructions are in Japanese.

Of course, as I mentioned, there are a number of video tutorials in English, that you can follow along with, if like us, you don't know any Japanese.

On the other hand, the colorful boxes can also provide a fun inducement to learn a little of the language.

I printed off Hiragana and Katakana (Japanese "alphabet") charts, so the girls could write down the English alphabet, phonetic spelling of each symbol, basically translating the words into romaji, the Romanized version of the Japanese spelling.

Then, they were able to type the English letters, or romaji words, into a Japanese/English translator online...

...to cherry pick a few of the easy, or often repeated words from the instructions.  It was more like code breaking than translating, but by the time the girls were done, they were becoming fairly familiar with the symbols and sounds of the Katakana and Hiragana "alphabets", had learned a few simple words...

...and had a good time creating tiny, tasty (or at least tasty looking) treats...

...as a reward for all their hard work.  Whether miniature ice cream cones, and frosting filled tarts will really lessen their sadness over leaving friends behind, or not, remains to be seen.  Now, at least they have something to email home about.

Teaching Children a Second Language - Vocabulary Building Success - Nouns

***I realized after posting this, that I should add the following statement, at the beginning***

This post is really meant for American, or maybe Canadian parents (you know, those of us who don't really speak more than one language), who are interested in teaching their children a second language.

After I mentioned some of the purchased (and borrowed) language materials, we've used, and are using, with the children, I realized, ironically, the set, that we've used with the greatest success, is a homemade batch of matching cards, I made up to teach the children some beginning nouns.



Basically, I cut small cards out of card stock, about 1 inch by 1 1/2 inch. Then, I cut, and glued, or drew pictures of nouns (animals, fruits and vegetables, numbers, etc.) onto some of the cards, and wrote their matching words, on the rest. I only made one set of picture cards, but I wrote the words out in German, French, Spanish, and very sad looking Japanese and Hebrew (right now we're focusing in on the German) - this is where the books, that came along with the Muzzy set, or the picture dictionaries, came in handy. I also made a master sheet, as a guide for myself.

The pictures, I cut out for the animals, came from worksheets printed from the Kid Speak software, which offers practice in German, French, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, and Hebrew. I bought this software during my "give the children a broad linguistic base" phase of thinking. And, that's also why I made cards for so many different languages at once.

I started out by introducing one set of words to the children per month (remember when I said learning a language takes time?). So, one month we took on animals, another month fruits and vegetables, and so on, of course, for smaller groups, like shapes, or easy ones like numbers, we'd cover two, or three groups in a month.

The first week we spend going through the cards together. I place a picture, and word together, and we say them out loud, which is where some of those recorded sets, like Bilingual Baby, come in handy, as pronunciation guides.


The rest of the month, I challenge the children, each day, to match up as many of the words to their correct pictures, as possible. By the end of the month, the children usually have a pretty good grasp of the words in the set, and we move on to the next group. Every once in a while, we pull out the old words, and play a matching, or memory type game with them. With the older children, I try as much as possible, to have a worksheet, or two, ready as well, so they can practice writing the words, too.

If in review, some of the words have been forgotten, we pull the group back out, and start over with it again, focusing heavily, on the forgotten words. And, I try to quiz the children throughout the day on the words, by pointing to objects around the house, and asking for their names in other languages, just like I did with English, when the children were first learning to speak.

This part of language teaching is easy, and I've had success with this method. I've even had some good beginning success in moving into plural nouns, and adjectives. The obstacle I haven't been able to overcome yet, is finding a child friendly way to teach verb conjugation. If anyone knows of one, I'd love to hear about it.

It's great to be a homeschooler.

Teaching Children a Second Language - My Language Background

I thought before I went any further into sharing successes and failures in teaching children a second language, I should fill in some background information, about where I'm coming from.

It's tempting to sum my whole experience up with one sentence - In college, I took second year Spanish, four years of German, and one semester of French. But then, what is more important to know, is what I learned from the experience of studying these languages, than the actual languages I studied, but no longer really know.

• I learned, first of all, that mastering a language, like an instrument, takes time, discipline, and practice.
• I learned that very little language skill is actually taught during a freshman level university course, at American universities. Case in point, after sitting through, and enjoying, my first year of German, I spent the summer studying one of those Berlitz learn-Spanish-in-hurry type books, and skipped over freshman Spanish altogether (and no, I'm not super bright, just impatient, and occasionally, a little overambitious).
• Since, anyone who studied a language in High School, was given a pass on the freshman level in university, I have to assume, that very little language learning is going on in American high schools either, if four years of High School language study, amounted to what I learned from Berlitz in one summer.
• I learned I'm not a huge fan of immersion style teaching, or what I call artificial immersion. What I mean by this, is the type of class, or material, that tries to teach a language by dumping the student into it, in a sink, or swim manner. I've never been in a situation where I've found myself completely surrounded by speakers of a foreign language, so I don't know how I'd do then, but in a classroom setting, it's a frustrating, and time consuming way to learn.
• I learned that obtaining a beginning level of fluency in a new language is exciting, and opens up an entire new world of literature, music, and entertainment in general.
• Finally, I learned, that without constant use, language skills fade surprisingly quickly.

So, this is where I'm coming from. I was four years out of university, by the time we had our first son. My German had faded a good deal at that point, but I was optimistic, that with work, I could regain my fluency. And, by starting him off, right from the beginning, give him a huge head start into a second language, too. I had dreams of bilingual children, which morphed into dreams of university ready children, prepared to skip over that first year of language study, or even just children with a strong linguistic base to work from.

While I've pretty well given up on the first dream, the second two, look like they might actually be attainable. Which, I hope to share more about in another post.

It's great to be a homeschooler.

Teaching Children a Second Language - Products We Have Tried

Okay, as promised, here's a smattering of German language sets I've used with my children. These have done pretty well for what I wanted, which was vocabulary, and pronunciation aids. I'll try to get around to reviewing my favorites of the bunch, but I just kind of wanted to give an idea of where we've been on our language journey.

This isn't everything we've tried, just the ones I remembered, as I scanned through Amazon (where most of the pictures came from). And, many we've tried in German, Spanish, French, and sometimes even Japanese, and Hebrew, with some success. To these, I've added my own flash cards, and games, as well as some worksheets from online.

After working through all of what I have pictured here, multiple times, over the years (with the exception of Tell Me More German - we're still working through that one), I can offer a few tips:

• First of all, none of these work for bringing children to fluency in German, or any other language.



• Almost any of them can be used for teaching very simple basics in German (colors/numbers/animals/hello/thank you/etc), especially if you use them all together.



• It's never a good idea to purchase an audio, or video program unless you have listened to it first - sound quality varies greatly from product to product, and it really matters.



• If you are buying online, read all the parent reviews before you purchase. Pay attention to how long the reviewer has had the program. Did they just get it, and love it, or have they been using it for years, with good success? Listen to the people who have been using a product for years.



• Just because a product seems very good in one language, does not mean it will be as good in another language. For instance, I happen to think Dr Blairs' program is much better in Japanese, than in German. And, while we enjoyed the French Learn in Your Car for Kids, the German version, is not one of our favorites.



• Use all of the material available from your library, before you buy anything. Despite great promises, they all work about the same.
  
  

I should add too, that although I've had pretty good success in teaching the children beginning vocabulary, up to 500 words, or so, in several languages, I've found the minute (and I do mean minute), we stop working on them on a daily basis, they forget almost everything.

And, the most frustrating part of trying to teach the children a second language, from an American perspective, is the lack of availability of intermediate material, and written exercises actually geared to children.

Coming up next in this series (probably) - My Language Background - just in case you're thinking you have to be fluent in a language, before you introduce your children to it...well, of course it would help, but it isn't necessary. Some of the best success I've had with the children, has been when I've been learning right beside them.

It's great to be a homeschooler.

Teaching Children a Second Language - Intro

I've been thinking about sharing some of my success, and failures at teaching the children a second language, for a while. As, I started organizing some thoughts, I realized it is going to have to be a series of posts. We've been at it for 12 years, and have used, what feels like, hundreds of resources, that run the whole spectrum of really good to absolutely worthless. And, my goals have fluctuated between teaching a single, second language, and providing the children with a wide linguistic base.

Right now, I'm planning the series out, something like this.

• Where I'm coming from - a brief, at least I'll try to keep it brief, post on my own linguistic, background (which is not nearly as impressive, as that phrase makes it sound).
• My hopes, and dreams for bilingual children, verses the realities of where we are at.
• A list, and perhaps short review, of as many of the products, that we have used, as I can remember (it has been twelve years, after all!)
• Some tips, and points of frustrations, when it comes to teaching children a second language, while living in United States.

These might change, and morph a bit, as I write them, but I wanted to lay out the general idea. So, if you're interested in teaching your child a second language, or if you have input on the topic, watch for the posts as they come. I'll try to get to them in the next week, or so, interspersed with our other topics.

It's great to be a homeschooler.