I am returning to this blog now that my children are in elementary school and have made tremendous progress in English, but not enough to be totally selfconfident in english.
In addition to being the mother of two children aged 9 and 10, I am a teacher and a lover of languages. I have been studying and practicing language learning for a long time, english and french.
I have a University Degree in Business, and my own training and the fact that one of my passions is traveling have led me to work hard at learning languages.
I currently teach business at IES Fray Luis de León and have been involved in international projects for years. Mastering several languages gives you culture and perspective, helps you grow as a person, and makes you more independent in life.
Nowadays, languages are essential, especially English.
Now, as a mother, I will tell you about the work we do at home to help our children develop communication skills.
Learning a language is difficult; it requires a lot of stimulation to force us to understand and speak other languages.
It is impossible for a child to learn a language solely through the hours of class established by the curriculum. I say this loud and clear: IMPOSSIBLE. For a child to learn a language, they need a lot of stimulation in their environment that allows them to learn to communicate...
Primary school classes are very diverse, and if this is noticeable in a normal class, it is even more noticeable in a foreign language class. Children who are exposed to languages in their environment know how more or less to communicate; those who are not exposed will learn to hate a language because they usually learn very little, and this carries over from primary school to secondary school. Of course, the system has a huge learning gap, but it is true that new technologies have allowed families who do not have an immersive English environment to compensate for this with online exposure, whether synchronous or asynchronous...
Obviously, behind all the effort made by families to stimulate language learning, there is a significant effort that must be made if the aim is to learn to communicate and not just pass exams.
In the case of my children, I'll tell you a little about how we work on this:
1) We have an excellent teacher at school who really encourages them to communicate. She promotes meaningful learning through international projects in collaboration with schools in other countries. This way of learning is great, but it's true that it might be more productive to focus on a few projects that allow more time to internalize structures and vocabulary and practice communication situations in class. Cris is a nervous teacher, very implicated in her job, we sometimes cannot follow her...but we try, of course!.
Her blog: LAL Aprender Lengua Viva. Metodologías activas
2) Every week, we set aside an hour to improve oral skills at home readinng and speaking. We know it is not enough...but we both work and we also have to manage our home. We read aloud or use the PopPlanet platform, which is wonderful. We are lucky to be able to communicate in English, so we don't use virtual tutors at home (another good option for language immersion).
3) We do regular grammar reviews in creative ways. I bring the methodologies I use in my classes home so that my children can learn in a meaningful way, linking concepts and creating situations in which they can understand the meaning we want to work on. From methodologies based on critical thinking and Maker Culture to dramatization (which I think is wonderful for language learning).
4) For years, Álvar and Martín have been taking communication classes with experts in linguistics. We are loyal followers of INFIL, a school that works diligently to help children learn to communicate. Even so, we believe that our children need more personalized attention to advance in their own goal of communicating aligned to their levels of english.
Our plan is for them to soon be able to take part in an immersive English-language activity where only English is spoken.
It's difficult when they're so young, but for now, the “English Village” option is a clear possibility, although it's beyond our budget with two children.
