Any training is built on certain principles and goes through the necessary stages. Language learning is no exception. Without the alphabet and phonetics, it is impossible to start reading and writing, and without proper pronunciation, it is impossible to speak with native speakers. Learning a foreign language should take place step by step and with the help of an experienced teacher, at least for the first time. For maximum productivity, you need to include everything in the process known species and ways of acquiring knowledge: books, films, music, grammar tasks and exercises, live communication, written work. If you exclude any stage, it will be difficult to see the whole picture. This applies to adults over the age of 20; are children any different in this matter?

Peculiarities of foreign language perception by a child

At birth, the baby develops certain talents and has no skills, no communication, no body control. At certain stages of life, with the help of adults, they begin to walk, eat, dress, then write, read, and so on. And each child has a certain development “plan”, in accordance with it he learns and acquires certain vital skills. This also includes speech; without the ability to speak and express thoughts in society it is quite difficult to live. The first language is absorbed by the child as a matter of course; parents do not explain to the child the specifics of its use. everyday words. They learn most of it even before speech is formed and take it as a basis.

Therefore, a child in a Russian family will never speak English himself, and German parents are unlikely to hear Russian speech from their child. Further, in the learning process, new languages ​​are transferred to the native one, and are considered through the prism of the first one. If you are planning to move to another country with a child, then start preparing him for this in advance; before the age of 6, his perception of the world is formed. Starting from 7 to 13, training proceeds in the classical form, and after 14 - by memorizing words and rules.

Methods of learning a foreign language

Each language school conducts research and develops its own teaching methods suitable for a specific group of children. But there are 6 main options suitable for different babies. Depending on the temperament and interests of a particular child, you can choose the optimal set of exercises.

There are schools that combine 2 or several methods into one, combining lessons in such a way that children find it interesting to learn foreign languages. If you choose the right set of exercises for your child, you can get the best results and a satisfied, happy baby.

How you can help your child learn a foreign language

Except language school and teachers, you can provide your child with additional easy activities at home, then he will not have time to forget the material from lesson to lesson and will start talking much faster. Don’t try to immediately give all the information to remember, carefully wedge it into games, try to captivate the child so that he starts working on learning the language with pleasure.

Introducing words of a foreign language into spoken language at home and spending language days with the family is an excellent unobtrusive method to improve the knowledge of adults and instill interest in children. You can arrange 1 day a week dedicated to the country, traditions, features, for example, Italian weekends or English Tuesdays.

• Come up with games and rules, prepare National dishes, look for suitable clothes, music or films and try not to use the words of your native language for several hours. If you get creative and involve all family members in the event, the younger ones will quickly get used to the sound foreign speech and will be happy to learn new words.

• Auxiliary materials, cards with pictures, colorfully written words will help diversify boring grammar rules and exercises. Draw pictures with your child, look for required images in magazines, organize competitions to guess words, match pairs, invent games. This will allow you to have fun with your child and unobtrusively introduce new concepts into your child’s vocabulary.
• Musical works, audio lessons and learning songs and poems will accustom the child to the sound of foreign speech and to the peculiarities of pronunciation different words, will help develop memory. You should take into account the age category and choose materials that are understandable to the baby. Invite your child to act out a short scene and a famous fairy tale, show them to grandparents, and invite relatives and friends to an impromptu performance.
• For older children, reading books in a foreign language is suitable; first tell them at night, then ask the child to read them aloud to you. Choose simple works that are already known to the child in their native language so that the meaning is clear. This will improve visual memory, pronunciation and understanding of the structure of the text. This option is suitable for older children - from 7-8 years old; a 5-year-old child will not be able to read a fairy tale to you out loud.
• Cartoons and various educational videos that have filled television and the Internet will appeal to almost any child. To learn English, children's channels show shows and programs with tasks and explanations of various rules. With French, Italian, German and Spanish the situation is a little more complicated, but the information is still available. To find materials in other less popular languages, you will need to search.
• Attract modern technologies To help your baby, download and install programs, applications and educational games. The main thing to remember is that for a child under 6 years old there should be no more than 30 minutes of screen time per day. It is better to study regularly for 20-30 minutes than to spend 1 day with a tablet for several hours and then lose interest in it.

Whatever method you choose, take into account the age of the child; children under 6 years old will not be able to sit through a lesson for more than 20 minutes, even in a playful way. From 6 to 8 years old you can increase the time to half an hour and only in good mood.

What can you do?

It would be more correct to say what SHOULD be done to make the language learning process easier for the child and give him a positive attitude towards learning.

What you should absolutely not do!

A child perceives all activities through play; an adult, on the contrary, must approach the issue of learning a language as seriously and collectedly as possible. These are features of the functioning of the brain and memory in at different ages. If you do not take this into account, classes may not only fail to bring tangible results, but may also be detrimental to the development and psyche of the child. With any study method, it is absolutely forbidden to:

If your child has started learning a foreign language, be patient and try to help him not lose interest in his studies. Please note a few simple tips, suitable for both children and adults.

Tip #1: The 20-minute rule. Children and adults cannot concentrate on one thing for more than 20 minutes; if you do more, the brain gets tired and memorization becomes much more difficult. And it is several times more difficult for a child under 10 years old to sit still for more than a quarter of an hour. Take breaks, exercise only in a good mood and in excellent health.

Tip #2: Poetry and Music. Any information is remembered better if it evokes emotions and memories; this is also called the associative method of memorization. The human brain is designed in such a way that rhymes and musical structure are remembered better than continuous text.

Tip #3 “Look for like-minded people.” It will be easier for you and your child to learn in the company of similar students. If you are studying at home, join the process, it will become easier for both of you.

Tip #4 “Repeat what you have learned.” Without this, nothing will work out, no matter how hard you try. Build your lessons taking this point into account, start the lesson by reviewing the material covered. And children can be reminded all day about the words they have learned and asked to pronounce them.

Tip #5: “Habit of learning.” It only takes 21 days to form a habit; if you do the exercises regularly, then within a month they will no longer be a burden. The main thing is to have time so that interest does not disappear before a month.

Tip #6: “Speak up.” Try to replace your native language with foreign words as much as possible, turn it into a game. Establish a prize for the largest number of substitutions during the day, get involved in the game with the whole family, then your child will be happy to learn new words and apply them in life.

Tip No. 7 “Natural environment.” If everyone around you only speaks English or German, you will have to adapt to society. A child in the company of English-speaking children will quickly absorb words and figures of speech in a natural setting. Up to 7 years this process can take place easily and without special problems for the baby.

As a conclusion

All parents dream of raising a genius, teaching him everything before school, so that he is ready for any twists of fate. A child’s brain really develops better with constant training and exercise. The main thing is not to overdo it, because nowadays all people are surrounded by a huge amount of information, and it is quite enough for the active work of a child’s head.

If you are not planning to move to another country, but just want to expand your child's knowledge, wait until school. The information and level of language proficiency at school is sufficient for such purposes. If you want higher knowledge, you can choose a teacher or language center that matches the age and level of preparation of the child.

Modern parents, who care about the bright future of their children, are increasingly faced with the following question: when, how and where to start learning English with their child?

And not without reason, because knowledge of a foreign language, especially English, makes dreams of such a future closer.

English language: when to start?

You can start learning a language at any age, but the most favorable period is the age from 1.5 to 9-10 years. In this fairly wide time period, the child’s involuntary memory is best developed. He is able to remember everything “on the fly,” as they say, on an intuitive level, without making much effort.

There are methods that allow you to start learning from the cradle, even when the baby does not speak his native language. It has been proven that any early learning of foreign languages ​​bears fruit. Psychologists believe that such a child is truly ahead of his peers in his mental development. But not in an emotional way, so in your desire to raise a genius, do not forget that every child needs a carefree and joyful childhood, and he needs live communication and a smile more than perfect knowledge English alphabet at 2 years old.

Children's language abilities

Does the child have the ability to learn languages? Will time and effort be wasted? Imagine: the baby is already drawing a little with pencils. Will he be able to paint with a brush and paints? Naturally! After all, he is already drawing. So it is with language. The baby is already beginning to communicate in his native language, which means he has a talent for languages! Of course, for perfect command of a foreign language, specific talents are required, as in any other fields of science and art. But if we are talking about learning a language to expand their general horizons in order to have a strong foundation for the further development of language skills and abilities, any child can do this.

What skills should a child have to start learning English?

To learn foreign languages, every child must be able to listen, see, repeat (at least in his own way), draw, run, crawl, jump, etc. A foreign language with small children is always a game. And any child can play. Important: he must know in his native language what he has to learn in English! You should not learn colors in English if your child does not understand them yet.

How and where to study English

You can study a language at home, with your parents, or in a children's studio, or invite a nanny-tutor who speaks a foreign language. It makes sense to send a child to a children's studio if he is 4-5 years old or older. At this age, learning in a team will be beneficial. Young children under 3 years old, as a rule, have not yet acquired the skills of playing together or fully communicating with peers, so it is better to study with them at home.

If at least one of the parents has a conversational level of language proficiency, the best option There will be communication with the baby from birth in two languages. For example, an English-speaking father and a Russian-speaking mother. Growing up in a linguistic environment, a child quickly acquires communication skills in a foreign language. In this case, both languages ​​will be native to the baby.

Do mom and dad only remember a couple of words and phrases from the school English course, or have they studied another language before? Not scary. There are textbooks for kids and their parents with detailed methodological tips and pronunciation instructions. There are many Internet sites where you can download audio recordings in English and texts for them absolutely free. And parents are given a wonderful opportunity to learn for themselves English language and teach the child.

English from scratch for children: where to start?

It makes no sense for young children to start learning a language from the alphabet. Especially if they have not yet mastered the technique of reading in their native language. the main objective Parents should: instill in their child an interest and love for foreign language, and then expect great results.

Based on this goal, you need to start with what arouses the baby’s interest. The theme “Animals”, “Toys”, “Household Items” will be a great start. It is convenient to use visual aids - cards for teaching children a language. You can buy them or make them yourself in accordance with the child’s level of knowledge and interests.

It’s not a bad idea to look at books, even if they’re in Russian. The main thing is to name what is shown in the pictures in English. In addition to nouns denoting objects and animals, you need to teach the child during normal communication the most common verbs and verb phrases, such as give me, take, come to me, look at, etc. Cartoons, songs, poems in English will develop the child’s linguistic hearing .

Training should be unobtrusive and the child should like it. The duration of classes is from 5 to 15 minutes. How younger child, the shorter the lesson. It is important to finish your “lesson” before your child gets tired and starts to get distracted, so that he wants to return to this type of activity again.

How to teach a child to think in English

There are different methods and different approaches to teaching children foreign languages. Some classical methods have a strong theoretical basis. It is described in detail in scientific works, pedagogical monographs and works. In its pure form, the step-by-step learning of English “from words to grammar” was used in Soviet schools. Most private English courses for children and tutors follow this method. In practice, all this theoretical baggage turns out to be not very effective.

English for children, especially the little ones, should be fun! It should not become a subject of study and cramming, but a full-fledged means of communication. What method has proven to be so effective that just 3-6 months after the start, the guys not only speak fluently in a foreign language, but also think in it?

An innovative method for teaching English to children in Russia is the communicative approach. In essence, it is practical communication with a native speaker or teacher who is fluent in English. The main focus is on speaking and listening. The technique is known and successfully used in the West. In Russia, the pioneer (and monopolist) of innovative technology was the network of Children's Language Centers "Polyglotiki", which has existed since 2006. This unique author’s technique was first used by the founder of the Polyglotics centers in the cultural capital of St. Petersburg and was a stunning success. Today "Polyglotiki" is an international network with 60 branches in dozens of different cities in Russia and neighboring countries.

All English language courses for children offered at the Centers for study from 2 to 12 years of age are based on communicative methods with elements of the classical approach. Maximum immersion in a foreign language environment naturally stimulates bilingualism in a child, and not only... After all, he learns both the basics of the language itself and begins to easily understand mathematics, natural sciences, literature and creative tasks in English. This means it is developing comprehensively!

The main goal of Polyglot teachers is to teach a child to perceive language, speak, and then think in it. No mechanical repetitions! Only improvised game tasks in English, creative skits, demonstrations, musical and cartoon shows, colorful cards and posters, gestures, facial expressions and communication with a native speaker. This is how English for children develops not only memory, but also intelligence and logic! And new knowledge contributes to the development of mental abilities and successful further education of children in Russian and foreign schools.

You need to return to English lessons at least 3 times a week so that the acquired knowledge is firmly entrenched. And, of course, this new “English game” for the child should bring him joy and pleasure!

It often happens that those who are not very good at handling their own children are especially generous with advice on raising other people’s children. And there are mothers who, either purely intuitively or skillfully combining intuition with erudition, work wonders in raising their little princesses and princes. And only their children themselves will remember these “homely” Pestalozzi and Montessori with gratitude. Meanwhile, their experience is timely for pundits and all other fellow mothers to take note of. Because almost every one of us can raise a child prodigy.

My six-year-old daughter speaks four languages. She's not a child prodigy, she's just an ordinary girl, I just found it very interesting to work with her, teach her different things and see what happens.

JUMPING IN ENGLISH

It so happened that Masha was born in Finland. I understood that, having heard Finnish speech from the cradle, she would not have any problems with the language. Therefore, having completely excluded him from everyday life, I spoke to my daughter only in Russian. I sang children's songs to her in Russian, read poems that emerged from my own childhood, turned on a tape recorder with recordings of children's performances that my grandmother sent us from Moscow. In short, the Russian language was the background against which Masha and I lived our “Finnish life.” But as soon as Masha turned one, it began to itch in her soul: it’s time, it’s time to start teaching the girl a foreign language. After all, the more languages ​​a person knows, the more opportunities life opens up for him. In any case, my five languages, to be honest, have never bothered me...

When I started teaching Masha English, the first thing I thought about was pronunciation. “I’m not a native speaker,” I thought, “my accent and my grammatical errors will stick to it.” But what kind of native speaker would agree to educate someone else’s child in such at a young age? So, whether to teach with an accent or not to teach at all, it certainly won’t make her any wiser. So I made a choice.

Back then I had no idea what a huge and interesting job I had taken on my shoulders. "Jump!" - was the first word of our joint dictionary. "Jump!" - and one-year-old Masha jumped merrily. "Jump!" - and I jumped with her. "Jump!" - bears, dolls and a ball were jumping. "Jump!" - the vase broke, but it was already the wrong “Jump!”

The game turned out to be so exciting that we even filmed the Jumping Machines on video. The next word was "give", then "take". Having learned these vital verbs, we moved on to vital nouns. Indeed, if you know words like “give” and “take”, you should know what exactly you are going to “take” and “give”. Bears, dolls, balls, cubes were used again: “This is a ball, and this is a doll. Give me a ball, I give you a doll.”

Together we rejoiced at the suddenly revealed poetic gift in me. I was very proud of myself - writing poetry in a foreign language! I never would have thought that. And it doesn’t matter that for now they are so... primitive, or something.

Masha was still very young, and her Russian vocabulary was just beginning to expand. She barely learned to “sculpt” her first phrases from a couple of words. And these first phrases of hers were understood only by those at home and, of course, by her grandmother better than anyone. “Lalya is sleeping, give me cocoa, my navel, my mother, there won-dan (fountain: water + fountain)” - this is her entire children's set. We were touched and happily quoted Mashina’s word creation. Every day she added new successful discoveries to her vocabulary, new amazing discoveries of the world already known to us.

In the book there is a picture of a man with a pitchfork. Masha carefully examines the drawing and thinks. He concludes: “Uncle has a fork.” And here I wedge in with my English “uncle” and the English “fork”. At first, Masha deftly combined both languages, simply using those words that were easier to pronounce. I assure you, it is much easier to say “sag” than “car”, “ball” than “ball”. Some words existed in parallel in her language: “moti” (look) and “look” periodically smoothly replaced each other. Other "English" completely replaced their unpronounceable Russian predecessors: "av-av" became "dog", "mi" (bear) was modernized into "teddi", and "zatik" (bunny) was reclassified as "boni".

HARMFUL PERIOD

But this is where the snag occurred. At some stage, Masha began to confuse languages ​​and insert completely English words into an absolutely Russian text. Things got to the point that even her grandmother stopped understanding her. In a panic, we began to notice that Masha’s speech development had slowed down, or even stopped completely. She became stubborn and irritable, and at times she completely refused to understand what was being said to her. And at the same time she refused to speak. It’s good that by that time I had already read a sufficient amount of literature on child development, including books on the psychology of development of children speaking several languages. So this turn of events was not a surprise to me.

I already knew that a violently expressed reaction of rejection is a normal phenomenon: this is how a child responds to an overabundance of information. We adults, when we find ourselves in a foreign language environment, are subject to exactly the same stress as children. We just express them differently, of course. And in children, this stage of “overload”, accompanied by completely “normal” harmfulness, usually manifesting itself around the age of three, can last for several months. If you're very unlucky, your polyglot will be mischievous for six months, say child psychology researchers. In any case - don't give up!

So we didn’t give up. And so much has already been done that quitting learning the language halfway would mean complete failure. And we, as usual, were born to win. I continued to speak English, Masha continued to defend her “I” in various, mostly unpleasant ways, and then one fine sunny day...

GLENDOMAN

Let me make a small digression. I actually read a lot of useful books about education and parenting. Here are some of those that greatly influenced the future of little Masha and to this day occupy a place of honor on our bookshelf: Glen Doman “How to teach a child to read”, “How to develop a child’s intelligence”, “How to make a child physically perfect”, “How give the child encyclopedic knowledge"... When Masha was born, these books had not yet been translated into Russian, so I read them in the original. The education system they offered was so good that I found the pages of Glen Domin and his institute on the Internet. Glen Doman received his degree in physical therapy from the University of Pennsylvania in 1940. Since then, he began to deal with the problems of mental development of children. At first I worked with mentally retarded children. From him they learned to read at an age at which ordinary children still cannot distinguish letters, spoke a richer language, knew how to behave correctly in any environment, and grew up smart and educated. And one day a scientist asked himself the question: “Are children with mental disabilities more susceptible to learning than ordinary children? Are they more talented?”

The answer the scientist found turned out to be frighteningly simple. No, they are not more talented, not more efficient, they are generally “not more”, but “less”. The fact is that few people seriously study children with normal development from an early age. We begin to teach them, as a rule, at the age of 5-6 (okay, if not later), when all the amazing learning abilities inherent in babies are almost lost.

And for more than 30 years, Glen Doman and his associates have been proving that young children are incredibly capable of learning. As the founder of the Institute for Human Development, Doman created a program that any parent can follow at home. And at his institute, parents are taught HOW to teach their children. I diligently studied this great wisdom from Doman’s books. And in the end, Masha worked not only with learning foreign languages. “At Home” I taught her to read, count and much more. Perhaps “Grandfather Doman” brought us out of the information tailspin into which Masha and I fell due to English overload.

We were just talking. About everything. In Russian and English. That's how we learned. And all learning took place in movement, in play.

PRODUCTIVE TIME

And then one fine sunny day, following the recommendations of Doman’s book “How to Teach a Child to Read,” I cut up a lot of huge cards and on each of them I wrote in huge letters a word that denoted an object that “lived” in our everyday life. I consider this moment to be a turning point in Masha’s and my “mental development.” We laid out cards on the floor and crawled over them looking for the right words. I said: “Masha, find a card with the word “iron.” And little Masha, who did not yet know how to speak, but could already distinguish about fifty written words, looked for a suitable card, brought it to me and hissed with the iron: “Psh-sh-sh- sh..."

Then, to my great surprise, I discovered that there were no books on the Russian market for the little ones that would be suitable for them to read. Such books must be written in very large print. Illustrations and text should not overlap each other. Books should talk about very simple things that a two-year-old child can understand: washing our hands, eating porridge, going for a walk. No more than two or three phrases on one page. No need for any frills, bells and whistles or super adventures. Every new day for a child is already an adventure. Let him figure out the most basic things first: what is happening in the park, in the yard, near the pond, what mom is doing in the kitchen. Tell us what the objects around him are called, name the actions he performs. Complex tales with many storylines do not cause the child to early age no interest yet.

Not finding anything worthwhile on Moscow bookstores, I began making books myself. I bought books and magazines with suitable pictures, cut up whatman paper, wrote the text large and pasted homemade pages into “my book.” Now Masha and I have about twenty such books. With their help, in parallel with studying English, Masha learned to read Russian.

But the most interesting stories Life still gave us something. Like any other child, Masha grew up and learned something new every day. She climbed into puddles, exploring what the mud was made of, looking for pebbles, checking what would happen if you put them in your nose or ear. It turned out badly: my nose was bleeding and it was painful. I calmly explained what blood was, but in my heart I was shaking with fear.

As she mastered the cards, Masha became more and more obedient and balanced, and an increasingly interesting companion and interlocutor. I think our information jam has cleared thanks to our tireless study and the productive time I was able to spend with her.

By the way, I call “productive” the time we spent together not only physically, but also spiritually. Sitting together in front of the TV while adult programs or soap operas are shown, chatting on TV with a friend, while your beloved child is spinning under your feet and whining, is not included in the concept of “productive” time. But if you peel a carrot and at the same time tell where this carrot came from, who eats it, why it is that color and what dishes can be prepared from it, time immediately transforms - it becomes productive.

LEARNING BY PLAYING

But let's return to the foreign language. The card system, our conversations “according to Doman,” my stubborn persistence, which initially faced Masha’s opposition and gradually defeated her, did their job. We did not teach any exceptions - and there are plenty of them in English; we did not deal with the most complex rules that schoolchildren are overwhelmed with and which are impossible and not necessary to explain to a child. We were just talking. About everything. In Russian and English. That's how we learned.

And all learning took place in movement, in play. It is believed that if a child is studying, he must sit. He doesn't like to sit. When he sits, the only thought in his head is: “Well, when can I leave?” He loves to study very much. But sitting is not. Boys, on the other hand, probably remember everything much better when they hang upside down.

Masha and I never had the issue of sitting down for training. And the exhausting “sit and listen!” there wasn't either. The sand on the beach was quite suitable for writing words, we “pronounced” the world around us in English and Russian, sorted it out “bead by bead,” counted fingers, ants, white, red or blue cars. Once, while walking, I laid out pebbles on the asphalt and explained the structure of the solar system to four-year-old Masha. She listened with bated breath. Older guys came up to us and began to listen too. They stood and stood, listened and listened, then one said in disappointment: “We thought you were playing!” “No,” my little daughter answered him proudly, “we are learning. Let the little dolls play.” Then she thought about it and added: “And you want to play with us?” solar system? Mom will explain how."

Sometimes, as a reward for completing a task correctly, Masha would jump an even or odd number of times - on one (right or left, we learned this at the same time) leg. Now she knows where is right and where is left better than I do. I told Masha everything I know myself. And in different languages. Her vocabulary was enriched, I tried to give names to everything that surrounded us, and asked her to repeat new words. She repeated and told something of her own. I corrected mistakes. She repeated and told something of her own. I came up with games - more and more old as the world. In antonyms and synonyms, in animals and birds, in colors and shapes, in numbers and letters... We played, and Masha said: “More, give more.” At some point, our spoken English began to turn into written English. Unexpectedly for myself, I was able to find many more books in English that were suitable for teaching reading than in Russian. So the prospect of producing English books as well, which initially frightened me, disappeared by itself. Since the Cyrillic and Latin alphabet contradict each other in places, I was very worried how Masha would be able to combine them. She didn’t even seem to notice that there might be any difficulties in this. I was just very happy that “R”, “B” and “S” were so similar and so different.

AND NOW ALSO SPANISH

One day, when Masha was about five, she heard me speaking Spanish. “What language is this?” she asked. “It’s beautiful. Will you teach me?” Thus, at the request of students, another language has appeared in our everyday life.

I taught her to read Spanish during our three or four trips to the city center, twenty minutes each way by bus. Machine's student experience was enough to make all the necessary generalizations and grasp the phonetic structure of the language. This does not mean at all that she understood what she was reading. She was simply technically able to read and pronounce the printed text correctly. Rejoicing and proud of her capabilities, I walked around and showed off my Masha. Out of place and out of place, when she came to visit, she demonstrated how she reads. Once, after such a demonstration (she brilliantly read an excerpt in English from a very complex economic article), she was asked: “Did you understand anything?” “But they didn’t ask me to understand,” Masha answered reasonably. But then I began to think whether it is worthwhile to force the child to act as a parrot in the future...

Now Masha reads fluently in four languages: Russian, Finnish, English and Spanish. Reads for pleasure and to gain information. Children who at her age cannot and do not like to read seem strange and “wrong” to me. I got used to the fact that from the age of four Masha could not be pulled away from a book by her ears.

One evening, when I was putting the children to bed, a friend called and asked what we were doing. “Marusya is going to read Nosov to us,” I answered. “Or the English fairy tale “The Golden Goose.” She hasn’t decided yet.” “So you are going to read to Ma-rusa?” - the friend clarified. “No: she does it for us. We always read before bed. Only I used to read, but now Masha reads. The only problem is that she sometimes gets confused in languages.”

And how can a six-year-old child not sometimes get confused in four languages! Words that raise doubts are brought to my judgment in the kitchen. “I think this word is read this way, but grandma says it differently,” says Masha. They are reading English book about the construction of the pyramids in Ancient Egypt. The word that caused doubt is Egypt. Masha pronounces it in English, grandmother - in Russian. I am a strict judge. The book is Russian, which means grandma is right, and Masha mixed up the pronunciation of two languages. Just in case, my daughter clarifies: “Have you been to Egypt?” Apparently, my stay in Egypt gives great weight to my knowledge. "Was". - “And did you ride a camel?” - “I was riding.” - “Have I been to Egypt?” Masha has about ten countries on her list; I’ve been taking her with me on trips since three months. Therefore, it is quite natural that she does not have a clear idea of ​​where she has been and where she has not been. "Was your grandmother in Egypt?" - "Was". - “Did she ride a camel?” We go to our grandmother to find out if she rode a camel and look for this very Egypt on the map hanging on our door.

Currently Masha is learning to write. In Russian she no longer writes in block letters, but “like adults.” She and I are making books again. This time she writes them herself - in English with translation into Spanish. And it seems that I will have to draw the pictures. We have not yet clarified this.

Now we have another little boy growing up in our family - two-year-old Sasha. Masha took responsibility for his education. She even made new cards for him. “House, tone (elephant), ag (flag),” Sasha reads, and Masha and I rejoice. He already understands and responds correctly to our four languages. True, cunning, as he once was elder sister, chooses from each one what is easier for him to pronounce. But this, as I already know, can be fixed...

Nowadays, early childhood development, in particular, early learning of foreign languages, is very popular and even fashionable. Quite often young mothers begin to teach languages ​​(especially English) to one-and-a-half-year-old and even three-month-old (!) babies - they show them cards with in English words, they put on cartoons in English, etc.

At first glance, it’s a complete benefit. But is it?

From a speech therapy point of view, no. Judge for yourself.

Problem one. The sounds in English and Russian are very different. In English, th - this, think - is the norm. Is thima (winter) and thlushat (listen) the norm in Russian? Of course not.

A child, having not yet mastered the sounds of his native language, from the cradle gets accustomed to sounds that are incorrect in his native language, but correct in English! And then the visits to speech therapists begin... The classics also wrote that you cannot study foreign languages ​​without first mastering your native language well.

Problem two. First words English child and Russian differ in the number of syllables. Compare: cat - cat, go - let's go, book - book. In this regard, English children are lucky - their first words are mostly monosyllabic, while Russian ones have two or more syllables.

And what is easier to say to a child: apple or yab-lo-ko? Of course, apple! The parents rejoice: the daughter pointed to the apple and said: “apple.” What is there to be happy about here? The child chose the option that was convenient for him, when in fact he should say “apple.” The child still does not speak his native language well enough, and the parents, without realizing it, are delaying his speech development even further!

Problem three. Children will definitely confuse English and Russian words.

The situation is different if we are talking about a bilingual family - where one parent speaks Russian and the other, for example, French. If you are in the house all the time, I emphasize, all the time! - both languages ​​sound, then the child will not confuse them (of course, there are exceptions here, but basically this is the case), since for him this situation will be natural, he has been “cooking” in it since birth.

The situation is the same with a Russian-speaking family who moved, for example, to Germany: at home they speak Russian, but all social life, everything outside the home happens only in German. In this case, children also quickly learn the language and do not confuse the languages, since they use both of them constantly, every day.

Thus, if you want your child to learn the language and not confuse words, you will have to speak to him, for example, only in English, and to dad - in Russian.

Of course, we can’t live without foreign languages ​​now; they are very important for children. Of course, they need to be trained. But is it worth doing this in a year or two or three?

I am a linguist, English teacher and French, and many people ask me: “Well, are you going to teach your children English and French from the cradle?”

“No way,” I answer.

After all, the child will still have time to learn them. You can start at five or six years old, if you really want to do it earlier, before school, but not at one or three!

The school will also study languages; from the first grade in many schools there will be two languages, and then three. You can always improve your knowledge with the help of courses, tutors, of which there are now a great many, choose - I don’t want to.

Why start learning languages ​​at such a tender age? Isn't it better to pay closer attention to the general development of his speech, attention, memory, physical development?

Personally, only one thing comes to my mind - now, unfortunately, all this is not fashionable... It sounds much more pleasant: “My Petenka already speaks English at the age of 4!” Or: “I’ve been teaching English to Anechka since she was two years old!”

Parents are just stroking their egos. Perhaps they themselves were deprived of the opportunity to learn languages ​​in childhood, or they think that early learning languages ​​guarantees better fluency, who knows.

But think about it: are you doing your child a disservice?

Personal experience

Maria Belokopytova

Comment on the article "Children and foreign languages: when to start learning?"

We live in Germany, our daughter was born here, we speak Russian at home, in kindergarten, of course, everyone speaks German, my daughter is now 2 years old, she understands everything in both languages, she speaks a mix of something in German and something in Russian. Our grandmother tells us all the time that the child somehow speaks very little (no long sentences), I explain this precisely because the child has Duolingo. Let's see what happens next, there are plans to send them to kindergarten from the age of 4 to study English, in this kindergarten we were advised that English will be taught only once a week and in a playful way, and there are also many children in the kindergarten for whom English is a third language . I also know about beauty mobile app Lexilize Flashcards, but this is for older children and schoolchildren, you can directly enter your words there, which the child goes over in class and teach them with games. I myself am learning German using this application, maybe someone is looking for something similar.

English is of course a priority. But it’s easier to superimpose other foreign languages ​​onto German, as the teacher explained to us. German was easy for us; we started studying it in 1st grade, when the child became interested in learning. Now he speaks it easily, sometimes even unconsciously starts speaking German, they are encouraged to do this in courses) We go to school all the time, even when we are sick we just study on Skype. We go to the school of foreign languages ​​Yazykoved-I.

I sent my daughter at the age of 4 here to the British kindergarten ILA Aspec. I liked the program that is taught to the children. Plus good conditions training, meals, a rich program in the summer, because... children can be sent to summer camp. Our truth will go to the camp only in a year, they recruit there from the age of 5. We decided that we would send him to a complex located on the border with Germany. And the child will visit, as it were, not in Russia, new impressions

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Chekhov also said: “The number of languages ​​you know, the number of times you are human.” These days this saying is especially relevant. The more languages ​​you know, the more opportunities and prospects you have. And without English now, there’s practically nowhere, i.e. In addition to the native language, it is advisable for the child to know at least one foreign language. How to teach your children a foreign language so that they speak it at a decent level and at the same time learning is not a burden? There are two possible scenarios here.

The ideal situation is natural bilingualism (trilingualism, etc.) from birth. If your family members own different languages(for example, mom is Russian, and dad is Romanian), or you yourself speak two languages ​​perfectly, don’t be afraid to communicate with your child in all the languages ​​you know from the first days of life. I repeat: it is important that the parent (grandmother, grandfather, aunt...) is a native speaker of the language, speaks it fluently, competently and without an accent, otherwise there is a high risk that the child will “absorb” these mistakes, and it may be difficult to correct them later .

If from birth the child speaks two or three (or more) languages ​​regularly (i.e. if this is habitat of his life), by the age of 2-3, or less often by 4 years, a little person will not only understand, but will also begin to speak several languages, without confusing them with each other. In this case, the process of learning a foreign language (you can’t say for sure which language is native and which is foreign) is easy, as natural and effective as possible.

Here is a real example of one family. Liliana Botnaru and David Jesse have three children (6, 4 and 3 years old). They all speak not only their native Romanian, but also English (the youngest daughter, due to her age, of course, is just starting to speak English).

“We didn’t specifically teach the children English,” says the mother of three bilingual children Liliana Botnaru. — My husband and I speak English among ourselves (David is an American), my husband and children also speak English, and my grandmother and I speak Romanian, and it’s been like that since birth. Now children know two languages, and they have never confused them with each other.

The children started talking quite early. They began to pronounce their first words at the age of one and a half years, and by the age of two they began to form sentences. True, they mastered the Romanian language faster, because went to a Romanian kindergarten, but at two and a half they began to speak English, although they understood it before English speech(It was obvious). For enrichment vocabulary and speech development, we read English books to the kids, listen to songs and watch cartoons in English. We also often have English-speaking guests at home, with whom the elders can easily carry on a conversation.

By the way, cartoons are a great way to teach a child a foreign language, even if no one in the family speaks that language. I remember I was struck by the fact that when I worked as a volunteer in Moldovan villages, I met ordinary Moldovan rural children of junior school age who spoke good English at a conversational level. When I asked how they knew a foreign language, the guys admitted that they just watched cartoons in English.

Personally, the linguistic courses I took in my youth helped me a lot in learning English. Russian was my native language, and I only learned Romanian perfectly in college.”

“The phenomenon of families of bilinguals (trilinguals, etc.) is very common in our country,” says child psychologist Tatyana Kozman. — I grew up in a bilingual family, and my personal family also speaks two languages. In our multilingual world, I think this is very promising. It is a mistake to believe that in a bilingual family you need to communicate with a child in the same language so that he starts speaking faster and does not get confused. Children begin to speak in accordance with their individual pace of development, regardless of the number of languages ​​they hear in their environment. Oddly enough, children from an early age can not only distinguish between languages, but also understand the meaning of what was said and respond in the language in which they were asked. It is more effective to “teach” children other languages ​​immediately from birth, because they do not learn, but unconsciously acquire another language. With this development, both hemispheres are involved. If a child has mastered two languages ​​from birth, it will be easier for him to later learn both the third and the fourth.”

Another situation - acquired bilingualism, i.e. The child was specially taught a foreign language. Not every family has speakers of different languages. And that's okay. What should those parents who want to raise their child bilingual (trilingual) do in this case? It's simple: you need to teach your child the language yourself! Two nuances are important here: it is you who should teach your child a foreign language, and not a tutor or language course teacher, and secondly, you must speak the language being taught correctly (if you speak it with errors, you need to improve and learn the language together with your child ).

“A child learns a language easier and faster if his parents or people around him speak it,” says child psychologist Tatyana Kozman. — During courses you rarely see live, direct, everyday communication. Moreover, the courses study words and phrases separately, and the child’s psyche needs not elements, but whole phrases and communication. And if parents speak another language with errors, there is an incentive to study the “correct” language expressions with the child. You don’t have to constantly speak another language with your children; you can devote just 10-15 minutes a day to this!”

Tatiana Leleka, mother of an eight-year-old bilingual son, professional translator, English teacher for children preschool age, also believes that mother is best teacher any language for your baby. Moreover, she advises children to study English right from the cradle.

“From birth to six years is the age of linguistic genius, when children are not lazy to remember, listen, when they are interested in everything and absorb everything. In Europe, in many families, children are taught two or three languages ​​from early childhood.

Why should a child start learning a foreign language with his mother? Because it is extremely important to instill in a child a positive emotional connotation of this language, and this can only be done by a loving mother who can best find an approach to her child.

How does language learning occur in children?

• From birth to one year is a period of adaptation, listening to language. The more sounds you give your child, the wider his range of perceived sounds will be. You can introduce your baby to four, five, even eight languages! This does not distort his hearing, but, on the contrary, develops it!
• 1-2 years is the period of acquiring passive vocabulary. The child extracts phrases from speech. At this time, you need to read books in a foreign language, play cartoons and educational films, and speak with the child in a foreign language in a monologue format.
• 2-3 years is the period of understanding the language. The child no longer understands individual phrases, but streams of speech, and he has a desire to speak.
• 3-4 years is the period of speech development. The child needs an interlocutor. The mother must motivate the baby to speak a foreign language. If a mother does not speak the language perfectly, she has 3-4 years from the moment the baby is born in order to improve her knowledge.
• 5-6 years – period of independent work. Immersion in the language becomes longer: 1-1.5 hours. Be sure to allocate part of this time to independent work (working with coloring books, solving crossword puzzles in a foreign language, etc.).

Remember A few simple truths that will help you in teaching your child a foreign language:

1. At an early age, children do not learn language - they comprehend the world through language.
2. Until the age of six, you should not have any control over your child’s foreign language skills – in certain cases life situations this knowledge can manifest itself, but you should not seek to learn this on purpose.
3. If you have taught your child their native language, then you are already a good linguist for your child.
4. All children are capable of learning any language; there is no special gene responsible for this ability.
5. Do not translate foreign words to your child - show them to him in books, on cards, with gestures.
6. Encourage your older child to speak a foreign language by talking with a native speaker on Skype or by traveling to another country.
7. You don't have to live in an English-speaking country to learn English.
8. Every mother can find 15-20 minutes a day to teach a foreign language to her child.
9. Take these activities not as an additional burden, but as pleasure.
10. Believe in yourself and your child!”

Try it! I wish you everything to succeed!

Bilingual children. Like with early years teach a child a foreign language? was last modified: October 9th, 2014 by admin