How to Introduce a Second Language to a Child

If you are like most parents, you want to give your children every possible advantage for their future. Multilingualism is a gift that will equip your child with valuable and marketable skills as well as empowering him as a functioning member of an increasingly global society. At the same time, just as physical exercise strengthens your child's body, the effort of mastering two languages gives his brain a workout that sharpens and strengthens it for academic success, social savvy and emotional resilience, reports Susan S. Lang, editor of the Cornell Chronicle. The good news is that whether you started at birth or are starting the learning process at school age, it is never too late to introduce a second language to your child's repertoire of skills through natural language learning activities.

Things You'll Need

  • Storybooks, bilingual or monolingual in the second language
  • Children's DVDs, bilingual or monolingual in the second language
  • Music CDs or digital music, bilingual or monolingual in the second language
  • Talking toys, bilingual or monolingual in the second language

Instructions

    • 1

      Expose your child to both languages as early as possible. If your home is bilingual, have each parent speak to your baby solely in one language or alternate languages by time of day or on an every other day schedule. If you have a babysitter, grandparent or friend who speaks another language, ask these people to speak to your little one solely in the second language. The more frequently your child hears authentic, meaningful communication in both languages, the more likely he is to pick up both and sort out the differences over time in the natural language learning process of young children.

    • 2

      Create a language-rich environment where your child's language skills can flourish naturally, making language learning into play rather than a tedious, academic lesson that kills her interest in participating. Read storybooks, watch cartoons and children's shows and listen to music in the target second language. Provide your preschooler with bilingual talking toys. As your child begins naming items in her first language, point out that the object has two words. For instance, if she asks for an "apple," casually mention that another word for apple is "manzana" or "pomme."

    • 3

      Immerse your child in the second language whenever possible so that he learns the second language the same way he learned the first, recommends Nancy Rhodes, Director of Foreign Language Education for the Center for Applied Linguistics. If your family travels to a foreign country for vacation, business or as missionaries, encourage him to engage with the surrounding culture and learn to communicate with them in their language without feeling the need to translate everything for him. Language learning will happen when there is a need to communicate. If this is not feasible for your family, visit and shop in neighborhoods where the residents predominantly speak another language and give your child small communication tasks such as finding the "naranjas" or saying "grazi" to the clerk. Point out that different people have different names for the same thing and help him expand his vocabulary by learning both.

    • 4

      Enroll your child in a bilingual language enrichment class after school or on weekends. These classes can provide a basic introduction to a second language but results in actual fluency can vary based on whether your child has the opportunity for real world use of the language outside the classroom. If your elementary school offers a dual language program, you can ask to place her in the class when she enters school. Children who have a strong foundation in the first language to act as a scaffold upon which to hang the second language gain the most benefit from this type of language learning.

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