How to speak english with my child

How to Teach a Child to Speak English at Home: Ideas from Experienced Tutors

Teach your child to speak English, and you’ll open up a world of opportunities for their future. It’s well-documented that English speakers often earn more, have access to the world’s top universities and enjoy greater opportunities for travel. Who wouldn’t want that for their child?

If you’re determined to help your child learn English, you’re probably considering getting some expert guidance, whether that’s through an online English course, or finding a tutor who specializes in teaching kids.

But as a parent, you’re probably also wondering “What can I do at home to support my child’s English education myself?” We asked Preply English tutors who specialize in teaching kids that very question, and this is what they said.

1. Sing songs with them

A number of tutors mentioned that music is a great way to capture a child’s attention, and help them remember new words without stress.

Nyuyki “For me, the best way is through singing and watching interactive videos. This has been tested and so far came out positive. Most children love songs and can easily retain things through music!”

2. Use English in daily life

If you are comfortable speaking English yourself, use it in daily life alongside your mother tongue. Early exposure to more than one language at home has dozens of perks for your child. To name just one, studies show it’ll make pronunciation easier for them in the long term.

Interactive classes for kids

Learning with a tutor is more fun. Give your kids English lessons they’ll love!

Meet Preply tutors

Magdalini “Make the learning process as natural as possible. Don’t treat English as a foreign language but include it in daily activities, games and songs as you do with the child’s first language. While coloring, name the colors in English, while dancing, repeat the names of the moves in English, and so on.”

3. Set a regular learning routine

It’s well-known that kids love routine: it inspires a sense of security and helps them to develop self-discipline. It’s also really helpful for learning a second language!

Mirela Z.“If you are teaching your children English at home, I would advise you to have a routine for your children! Set up a schedule that is consistent every week; schedule days and times in which your children will be studying English. Have them choose the topics or themes to study, to keep them interested. Give them fun projects to do; like drawing the solar system, the USA map, holiday pictures, etc., and record them doing a presentation about the project. They will feel important!”

4. Play with your child in English

Several of our tutors suggested you should encourage your child to use English whilst playing. After all, studying a language won’t feel like studying if they’re having fun!

Rajesh “To help your child get ahead with English learning, get them to play in the language. At home, try playing dress-up games, hide-and-seek, Simon Says, charades and other popular games, whilst speaking in English. In other words, get them to learn the language in the same way they learned their first one!”

5. Ask them to act out something they see on TV

On the subject of play, one idea for a creative game is to have your child role-play an English-language commercial that you find on YouTube or the TV.

Miriela “Have them watch a commercial, and ask them to repeat it, as if they were acting in the commercial. This will help with their communication skills, and if they are shy, it will help them overcome their fear of making a mistake.”

6. Read comics together

If your child is slightly older, English-language comic books can be a great step towards reading English independently. Not sure where to start? Marvel comics are a classic starting point for those learning US English, and Diary of a Wimpy Kid is great for teaching contemporary British English.

Jamie “I think comic strips are a great way to motivate a child to learn English, depending on their age and ability. If they read a comic featuring their favorite superhero, for example, they will feel excited to learn. Also, the pictures really help them to understand the language as they provide great context.”

7. Praise them!

Children thrive on encouragement and their parents’ encouragement above all! If your kid is trying their best to learn English, let them know that their effort makes you proud.

Leonah “Praise your child to create a sense of success, and encourage them especially when they keep going with difficult tasks. Create a reward system for when they work hard! It doesn’t have to cost anything – extra free time, more visits to friends or activities of their choice. Don’t criticize them too often or correct every mistake, it’s okay and very normal to make mistakes when learning a language. In short, PRAISE, PRAISE, PRAISE!!”

8. Ask them open-ended questions in English

If your child is younger than ten, they’re probably always asking you “Why?” Now, it’s your turn to do this to them!

Nickoi “My strategy in the classroom is to ask open-ended questions that allow my students to speak and express themselves as much as possible. Parents can do the same, engage their children in conversation which allows them to use the language as much as possible.”

9. Have a tea party in English

If your children are very young, a teddy bears’ tea party in English is a very cute idea that they’ll enjoy!

Clare “The best way for parents to help young children learn English at home is to incorporate learning with play. With very young children, why not try to have a tea party in English? The child can invite their soft toys and the parent can come along, perhaps with younger siblings who won’t mind what language is being spoken, as long as they get to join in with pretend tea and cake!”

10.

Create stories with them

Creative writing in English is a fun activity for little people with big imaginations.

Clare “With older children, try writing a story together. As a tutor, I like to create stories with my young students about a toy they have brought to the lesson. The child is then involved in directing their learning from the start. Once the story is built up, we take turns reading it aloud. When the child reads the story back, they recognise the vocabulary, as these are the words they have just spoken. Other keywords can also be added to make the story flow or to introduce new vocabulary. I use the story later on as a base for exercises or homework.”

11. Use puppets

Two of our tutors mentioned that puppets are a fun way to help younger children overcome their fear of speaking in English.

Sally “I love playing games with my students using my puppet, Ziggy. Sometimes he hides part of a flashcard, other times he acts out actions for them to guess. When I ask a question and can see the student is unsure of how to answer, I ask Ziggy so they can hear his answer. It gives them the confidence to try the next one! We can correct Ziggy’s mistakes too — it stops them from being afraid of making mistakes which is so important and we can laugh together.”

Catherine Anne B “I am currently teaching English to Arabic children and I use puppets as my main tool in teaching English. I found the children loved the puppets and even put on puppet shows, demonstrating what they had learned.”

12. Talk to your child’s tutor

If your child has an online English tutor, it can be tempting to leave them alone during lesson time. Especially if your child is a little shy and you don’t want to distract them!

However, several tutors mentioned that children make much faster progress when parents check in with their tutors. It can help them stay up-to-date with what their child is learning, and practice it between lessons.

Yolandi “My young online students who show the fastest improvement are the ones whose parents are actively involved in their learning and development. The parents who ask me to make videos of their children’s classes, to re-watch together afterward show rapid improvement. Children and teenagers who get little to no support from their parents during their language course show slower improvement.”

She was keen to stress that there is a lot that parents can do to help their children learn, even if they’re not fluent in English themselves.

“Parents who don’t speak English, but want to support their children/teenagers in their English studies, can attend my classes together with their children (at no extra charge) so they can learn too. This will empower them to help their children with homework, or to complete worksheets at home, since they have also followed the lessons, and learned the same things that their child did. ”

She went on to deliver one final message which all parents will agree on.

“Love, showing interest, and giving support in the process of learning, are three of the most important contributions that parents could ever make towards their children’s development.”

The golden rule from our tutors? Make it fun!

We spoke to more than 30 tutors, and at least half of them pointed out that the most important advice for teaching a child English is to make it a process they enjoy. Don’t push them too hard to work on grammar exercises, and focus on playful activities and speaking skills. After all, they are still young enough to learn a language simply by being around it often, and it’s important to let kids be kids.

Give your child happy memories of learning English, and they’ll grow up with positive feelings towards the language. This will make them more likely to stick with it, and develop their skills to fluency! It’ll also be a much nicer experience for you and them.

Jackie “My biggest piece of advice is to make English fun! A child’s creativity and excitement will help him or her succeed. Practice spelling using games. Read interesting stories. Make a yummy recipe together in English! It isn’t just about the results; it’s also about the journey along the way. The more hands-on and interactive the learning becomes, the more the child will retain the information down the line.”

Hopefully, these tips gave you some inspiration for creative ways to teach your child english at home. If you’d like some more guidance, a few English lessons with an online tutor who specializes in teaching kids can be a source of inspiration for bringing English into your home. Private tutoring doesn’t have to be expensive either, with prices starting from just $5 per hour (and half-hour lessons available for little people with short attention spans!).

If you’re reading this, you’re planning to do a very responsible thing for your child’s future. Being able to speak English is a remarkable gift, and will set them up for success later in life. It’s also much easier to learn a new language as a child than as an adult! If you start them young, by the time they need their language skills, they will have a high level of fluency, and speaking English will feel effortless.

How to Speak English with Kids at Home: 6 Fun Ideas for Daily Learning

By kitlum Last updated: July 25, 2022

If you speak English, you’re able to communicate with 1.35 billion people–or around 20% of the people on Earth!

Why not give the kids in your life such amazing communication opportunities?

There’s a world of fun online English resources just for kids, plus plenty of simple language learning techniques for the whole family.

Here are six of our favorites!

6 Practical Ideas for Family Language Learning
- 1. Make Learning Fun with Online English Tools
- - PBS Kids: Vocabulary Games
  - FluentU
  - LearnEnglish Kids
  - ESL Games Plus
- 2. Establish a Family English Routine
- 3. Pick English Topics That Interest Your Kid
- 4. Use Props, Gestures and Facial Expressions
- 5. Don’t Obsess over Grammar
- 6. Look for English Opportunities During the Day

Download: This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that you can take anywhere. Click here to get a copy. (Download)

6 Practical Ideas for Family Language Learning

1. Make Learning Fun with Online English Tools

The best way to start is to make English learning such fun that kids won’t even realize you’re trying to teach them a new language. The online English language tools below will grab their attention with fun animations, songs and stories.

PBS Kids: Vocabulary Games

PBS Kids has some of the most creative online resources for teaching kids through games, songs and videos that make learning fun. The site is designed for native English speaking kids, but the vocabulary section is perfect for teaching words to English learners.

There are matching games, interactive stories, word puzzles and lots more. Many of them use characters your kids might already recognize from internationally-known kids’ shows like “Sesame Street.” With such fun games and activities, it’s easy to keep kids motivated and learning.

FluentU

FluentU is a program that immerses learners in the English language. It has entertaining short video clips like movie trailers, cartoon clips, funny commercials, vlogs, music videos and more.

The program makes all these videos easy to learn with thanks to interactive subtitles. Hovering a mouse over a word shows an instant definition and clicking on it opens a flashcard with more information. You can read example sentences or watch clips from videos where the word is used. You can also add words to vocabulary flashcard lists and study them with personalized quizzes.

On the iOS and Android apps, kids can practice speaking English out loud through questions that let you speak their answers into the phone.

FluentU lets learners practice all areas of language learning in an engaging way. It uses video, audio, text, images, interactive exercises and more to keep you and your family learning.

There’s plenty of content that’s sure to be appealing to kids and teens alike. Be aware that the videos aren’t filtered for kids, so I recommend hand-picking videos, or watching them first—which will also give you a learning boost, while you’re at it.

LearnEnglish Kids

The British Council offers this site specifically for English-learning kids. It covers all the essential language skills like listening, reading, writing, grammar and vocabulary. You and your family will have fun exploring the site—you can skip right to the Fun and Games if you want!

Plus, there are lots of printable materials you can use for English practice either in the home or when traveling with the family.

ESL Games Plus

ESL Games Plus offers more challenging interactive online videos and activities for older kids and teenagers. There are lots of interesting games for learning vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation. If your kids love playing on a smartphone or tablet, there are even mobile games that’ll turn digital time into English time.

Kids might especially enjoy the “sentence monkey” games for practicing grammar and sentence construction.

2. Establish a Family English Routine

Make English learning a routine in your family. Pick a time of the day when your kids are most alert and easy to work with, not when they’re sleepy or hungry. Give it a name like “English Time” that they’ll recognize and look forward to every day.

This will be the daily time that you spend with English activities, lessons or speaking together in English.

Younger children usually have shorter attention spans, so start them off with maybe 10 to 15 minutes per session. Extend the time as they grow older and are able to hold their attention better.

While it’s important to stick to your routine as much as possible, it’s okay to be flexible, too. Quite often, your child’s mood and energy level may affect their motivation to learn. Children aren’t attentive when they’re very tired, distracted or unwell. So use your child’s mood and energy levels as a guide—some days, you may want to move “English Time” later or even take a break for a day.

3. Pick English Topics That Interest Your Kid

To get a child excited about speaking English, teach through topics that they’re already interested in. Begin by noticing your child’s interests so you’ll know which games, songs or activities will motivate them to learn.

For example, if your child loves dogs, you could read “The Hundred and One Dalmatians” to them before bedtime or watch the animated version of it together on a Saturday morning. Then during “English Time,” you can teach vocabulary such as bark, puppy and paws, and have your child use the dog-related words in a sentence.

Since you’re focusing on a topic that your child cares about, it’ll be a lot harder for them to get bored!

4. Use Props, Gestures and Facial Expressions

Use props, gestures and facial expressions to capture your child’s attention and get them interested in the words you’re teaching.

Props are objects a child can see and touch. If you say the word spoon while handing your child a spoon from your kitchen, they’ll form an immediate connection between the word and the object. Younger children enjoy holding and touching things and imitating (copying) your movements.

Gestures (like waving or blowing a kiss) and facial expressions (like winking or making a funny face) are actions and movements that add an element of fun. If you wave your hand and blow a kiss while saying “goodbye” in English, you’ll hold your child’s attention and make the vocabulary itself more memorable.

5. Don’t Obsess over Grammar

If you hear your young child using incorrect grammar as children often do, what should you do? Should you correct them every time?

I say you should let small mistakes go and allow them to speak and express themselves freely instead.

That’s not to say that you shouldn’t correct them. You can and you should, sometimes. But don’t focus too much on pointing out their mistakes. Correcting them too often may cause them to lose interest in learning and discourage them from speaking English.

Instead, be patient with them, even if they forget what you’ve taught them or keep making the same mistakes. Children often learn through repetition. If you repeat a word or grammar structure often enough, chances are they’ll naturally learn it the right way.

6. Look for English Opportunities During the Day

Be on the lookout for opportunities to point out new vocabulary to your child as you go about your daily life. For instance, if you often take your child on nature walks, you could bring their attention to interesting words for birds, insects, animals and trees that you see along the way.

You could draw your child’s interest by pointing out something exciting. “Come look, there’s a butterfly climbing on a leaf! Isn’t it beautiful?” This may lead your child to ask questions like “What is a butterfly?” giving you the perfect opportunity to introduce and discuss more new vocabulary like insect, bug, wings, etc.

This type of regular, everyday learning makes English seem more relevant to kids’ lives. It also helps them practice English and learn new words in a relaxed, fun environment.

Plus, if you’re studying English yourself, the benefits will extend to your own vocabulary knowledge!

With these practical ideas, you’re all set to get started on your role as your child’s first and most trusted English teacher. Keep up the English practice with your kids and watch them become more fluent and confident each day. And don’t forget to have fun while you’re at it! Good luck!

Download: This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that you can take anywhere. Click here to get a copy. (Download)

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How to speak to a child... in English?

Today Alya talks about how, together with her child, to overcome the language barrier and the fear of foreign languages. There are four easy ways and one more difficult.

Hello, my name is Alya Badanina, in the recent past I am the editor-in-chief of Cosmopolitan, and now I am a mother of two children. Irisha will soon be 11 years old, and she is actively entering the phase of puberty. Kostya is 11 months old, and he just walks actively. I would like to discuss these two and a couple of dozen other children of my acquaintances with you every week.

Every mother has her own ... how to put it mildly, "fad". I have it in English. When I myself urgently needed a language for work, I suddenly realized that I practically did not know it. This is when deepening at school, studying with a super-teacher mom and entering Moscow State University, where he was one of the exams. Several years of downtime without practice, and this is such a deplorable result.

Finally I spoke. But after a whole summer of grueling almost daily activities with the carrier. All this was not easy for me. And not cheap. It seems that the most important thing for children is not to learn grammar or a lot of words, but to speak, not to be afraid of it, to overcome the barrier.

I've always been a little jealous of my friends who speak English or several languages fluently and wondered how they did it. Almost everyone answers that it is necessary and important to start from early childhood, and communicate with native speakers as much as possible. And here are some more tips from them:

1. Travel more. Ideally, send a grown child to a language camp or live in an exchange country for at least a month. The most important thing is motivation, it is useful for a small person to understand that there are other countries, cities and spaces. That Russian is not the only possible language of communication, that speaking another language is easy, that people are kind and open.

2. Watch a movie in English. Also read and look at picture books. Just choose materials according to age.

3. Have "foreign days." Or at least a watch. If you are lucky and you yourself speak perfectly (or not perfectly, but would like to improve your skills), go ahead! Choose one day of the week and ban all conversations in Russian. Any requests, meals, stories about how the day went, everything is only in English (German, French). You can start at least from one hour and gradually increase the time.

4. Don't miss out on other opportunities! Find out what courses and activities are available in your city. Walk near universities where foreign students study. One of my good friends spent all five years of the institute studying with a Chinese friend, teaching him Russian, and he, respectively, Chinese. The results of such a tandem are amazing.

Tell your children about the prospects that open up after learning a foreign language: about free internships abroad, about volunteer programs. Invite interested mothers with children to your home to watch films in a foreign language together, learn good poems, discuss the latest news and just have fun. Instill in your child a love for the language, create good traditions.

And more.

We, and especially Irisha, it seems to me, were lucky. Last year we lived for three whole months in the USA. I really hoped that this would give a cool impetus to our education with my daughter. Firstly, she finally understood how important and necessary the language is, and secondly, by the end of our stay she overcame the barrier. I began to calmly ask for directions, talk to waiters in a cafe, and even sometimes make complaints to them - for not bringing pencils for drawing, for example. Sometimes I met local children in the park or by the pool. I began to translate inscriptions, signs, announcements, understand a simple pun, etc.

But most importantly, that we brought from America is a very good exercise for the development of written and oral speech, which their children do at school. Every working day, that is, five times a week, American schoolchildren keep a reading log (a blog about reading): you need to briefly describe what the child read about during the day. He is supposed to spend half an hour every day with a book. American children dodge as best they can: describe children's magazines about Barbie, write about how they spent the day and just gag about non-existent works. But even in this case, there is a benefit: they learn to formulate their thoughts.

We adopted this experience and have been keeping our reading log for almost a year now. Fortunately, Irisha loves to read, however, so far only in Russian. For a while, she categorically failed to formulate and lead a coherent story. Therefore, at first we simply learned to generalize, analyze and write down everything in Russian, and only then did we translate. To be honest, everyone in the family was exhausted. But now my husband and I see what an amazing result all our sufferings have, the child translates well, formulates well and knows a sufficient number of English words for his age.

You might ask HOW? How could we force or persuade a child to sit with dictionaries and books and do all this? We just said that now it is an important duty of a daughter, like going to school or to the ballet, or taking out the trash. That without her, she would lose all her skills in the very first month after her return. It wasn't easy, but it worked!

Tell us, what are your mom's "fads" and what do you do with them? With "fads" and with children:)

Spoken English for kids online: lesson ideas and tutorials

December

Hello my dear readers.

Today our topic is “conversational English for children” – after all, this is a problem that every parent faces when they want their child to know the language as early as possible. And this problem also exists because - as we have known for a long time - they do not teach to speak English in school.

And in order not to reproach myself later with the question of why I relied on the school and did not take everything into my own hands, by the time my daughter reached the right age, I was already ready! We practiced every day and as a result, by the age of 5 my baby already spoke English.

And you can teach this to your children too!

Therefore, today I have 10 ways for you to put your baby in conversation. The most interesting method for him is, of course, the game. In a playful way, children are able to remember several times more information than in normal reading or storytelling.

Well, shall we start?

Retelling stories.
The point is that the adult quietly tells the child a little story. Then the child retells it to another person and so on in a chain. As you might expect, by the end the story will be completely different. And when an adult tells the original, everyone understands what kind of damaged phone they got.
Each with a thread.
Make up stories together. The way each adds over a sentence to the previous person's words. So in a fun way, the baby will stop being afraid to speak and will use his vocabulary. A simplified version of this game is simply listing words in order, the number of which grows with each new move.
Talking drawings.
Almost everyone loves to draw. So let's do it. For example, let the kid draw the food he loves, or his family members, or the story of how he went to his grandmother in the summer - whatever.
Everyone does it. Then, if this is a group of kids, they are divided into pairs and tell each other what they drew. And then, to consolidate everything one more time, they must tell what they learned about their friend. That is, the kids will practice both in their own story and in retelling other stories.
Put on a fairy tale.
Little children love to imitate and pretend. So let them play some fairy tale. Give them words and roles - let them practice.
"Potato"
Pick up the ball and throw it to each other with sentences in English. You can modify the game with a story and add your own proposal for each throw of the ball.

+1.
Come up with sentences one by one. For example:
House…
My house…
My house is big…
My house is big and warm…
And so on until the fantasy runs out. Excitement makes you remember even the most passive words from your stock.
Stories from pictures.
Place some pictures in front of the child. For example, forest, animals, family, etc. And try to come up with a story with these pictures. The path your kid comes up with is the maximum number of possible sentences.

Whatever games and activities you use with your children, cards with bright pictures will always help you achieve results faster. Therefore, I immediately give advice to all parents: get cards . Your child will speak instantly!

Cartoons.
Watch a cartoon and have your child answer your questions or try to retell it.
Crocodile.
A very famous game that you can change a bit. Just let the baby not silently show the words, but, on the contrary, describe them. Naturally, not in Russian. And you already have to guess what this terrible word is!

Charades.
A word (person, object, animal, etc.) is written on the sticker and the sticker is glued to the forehead. You need to guess what is written there, by leading questions.

Are you ready to start playing with your little ones?

But not everything is so simple. You won't learn much from games alone. Here's another one for you

• You can't go anywhere without a textbook.
Yes, you will have to work with the textbook. Do not take a dozen books at once, choose one thing that will become a support in learning the language in the near future. This may be, for example, Lyudmila Belina's textbook Spoken English for Children.