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How children learn Introduction Your child is an individual and different from all others. The way your child learns best depends on many factors: age, learning style and personality. Read the notes below, and think about your child. This will help you to choose activities and methods that will suit your child best.
- ► Purpose
- Early stages of learning
- Beginning Stage
- Emerging Stage
- Developing Stage
- ► How long does it take for children to learn English?
- ► Why do some children learn English faster than others?
- Did you know?
- Developing and Maintaining the Home Language
- Some reasons why children lose their home language:
- Did you know?
- Why developing and maintaining the home language is so important
- How early childhood professionals can encourage children’s home language development
- Engaging Families and Communities
- ~ Understand the importance of your role.
- ~ Consider newcomer issues.
- ~ Learn about who they are.
- Strategies for engaging families and communities
- ~ Offer flexible drop-off and pick-up times.
- ~ Use informal notes and phone calls.
- ~ Post information on bulletin boards.
- ~ Develop family-friendly newsletters.
- ~ Consider home visits.
- Did you know?
- 4: Creating a Supportive Learning Environment
- ► Establish a welcoming early learning environment
- ► Encourage children to play
- Model language use
- What do I do if children do not understand what I am saying?
- Did you know?
- 5: Language Learning Activities
- Language functions to emphasize:
- ~ Encourage interaction.
- ~ Interact with the children.
- ~ Use repetition.
- ~ Introduce new material slowly.
- ~ Be flexible.
- ~ Allow for breaks.
- Language-rich activities
- ~ Storytelling and retelling
- ~ Puppets
- ~ Describing unseen objects
- ~ Motivating activities
- ~ Language-based games
- Did you know?
- Creating Language-rich Environments: A Facilitator’s Guide of Workshop Activities to Support Parents of Children Birth to Five Years
This guide is intended to help early childhood professionals, such as Early Childhood Services (ECS) teachers, playschool teachers, day-home operators and day-care workers, better understand: how young children learn a second (or third) language the relationship between learning the English language, and maintaining and developing the home langua...
Children move through a number of stages when learning English as a new language. Some go through these stages more quickly than others, and children will sometimes have the characteristics of more than one stage at the same time as they transition between stages. Understanding a child’s stage of learning is important for planning appropriate activ...
Home language use: Some children initially use their home language in educational settings because it is the only language they know. Most young children give up using their home language quickly, realizing that it is not an effective means of communication in that context. If a few children in a setting share the same home language, they may conti...
Young children at the emerging stage typically use one- or two-word responses to questions like “What’s that?” or “Do you want a turn?” Their English use is also not very original. These children use a lot of formulaic expressions (words or phrases they hear others say); e.g., “what’s happening?”, “wanna play with me?”, “I dunno,” “me first,” “it’s...
Children gradually move from memorized sentences to original, productive and spontaneous English conversation. When young children learning English can engage in conversational English, this does not mean that they have mastered the English language. In fact, their English often has errors in pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar, and these errors ...
There is a commonly held belief that young children can learn to speak English in just a few months, unlike adults, who may take years. Research shows that this is not true; young children learning English can take years to become as competent in English as their peers whose first language is English. It takes approximately three to four years in...
Individual children vary in how quickly they acquire English, even when they are in the same learning setting. These individual differences can be due to such things as the following. Language aptitude: Language aptitude is a kind of learning skill, a set of verbal and memory abilities that varies between individuals. Children and adults with high ...
Some immigrant and refugee families come from oral cultures, where storytelling is a more widely used parent–child activity than reading books. This can influence young children’s familiarity with literacy.
Research shows that when young children are developing two languages at the same time, the two developing languages build on each other rather than take away from each other. The stronger the first (or home) language proficiency is, the stronger the second language proficiency will be, particularly with academic literacy. Maintaining the home langu...
not living in a community where the first language is widely spoken a strong desire for assimilation to the mainstream culture and the perception that belonging to a peer group means rejecting the home culture attraction to majority culture popular literature and media, and lack of interest in the literature and media from the home culture absence ...
Immigrant and refugee families often speak multiple languages. Some of these languages have their own unique structures and communication styles (e.g., Western cultures tend to prefer a direct style whereas many Asian cultures prefer a more indirect style to avoid disagreement and promote harmony) that may be different from English.
Family relationships can weaken if children and parents do not share a common language of communication. If children have limited proficiency in their first language and the parents have limited proficiency in English, the communication of values, beliefs, advice, family stories and other cultural and familial understandings can be compromised. As ...
Research shows that if young children continue to build their home language at the same time as learning an additional language, development of both languages is enhanced. Therefore, it is important for early childhood professionals to encourage families and communities to support children’s home language development and maintenance. Early childhoo...
Family engagement in children’s learning and overall development is an important factor in their success. Engagement of the wider community to which the families belong is also critical. It is within the context of community that children develop skills and knowledge. Therefore, engaging parents and community members in programming will increase yo...
In the case of newcomer families, you are often the first relationship they may have with someone from the majority culture. The role you play, and the impression you make, will have an impact not only on the children’s experiences but also on their families.
Newcomer families may be dealing with a range of issues, such as: decreased socio-economic status lack of community and family support unfamiliarity with the majority culture and its childrearing practices changing roles and responsibilities of family members racism and discrimination mental health issues maintaining home language and culture adap...
You will likely encounter families with cultural values and beliefs that differ from your own. Valuing diversity is the first step to family and community engagement. Show interest in children’s families by getting to know their linguistic and cultural backgrounds and find out what goals and dreams they have for their children. Embrace a mutual exc...
Meaningfully involving family and community members is essential to offering culturally-relevant early learning experiences. Welcoming family and community members to engage with children will enrich the experience for all children, not just the children of specific cultural groups. Strategies for involving family and community members include the ...
Making the beginning and end of the day as open and flexible as possible by having the children engaged in free play will allow for casual conversation with parents and community members as they drop off and pick up children. If a conversation is not possible due to a language barrier, communicate your openness through nonverbal behaviours such as ...
If communication in a common language is possible, brief notes or phone calls to share information or to express appreciation for something are ways to build connections between the home and the learning environment. This type of communication can also be done through a cultural broker or interpreter.
Brief, relevant information that is updated frequently, posted in high-traffic areas and translated into multiple languages can bring programming details and special event information to the attention of family and community members. Also include a display of children’s artwork and photographs of children engaged in a variety of classroom activitie...
Short, friendly newsletters in the home language of families can provide information about events, requests for participation, suggestions for at-home activities or thank-you notes. Photographs of actual children’s work or photos showing the activities step-by-step (e.g., looking at a book together, making a craft/art together) can be used to provi...
Meeting with families in their homes can provide insight into cultural and linguistic practices as well as help build relationships and establish open communication between home and the classroom. Home visits should never be forced, and family privacy and confidentiality must always be respected. When necessary, home visits can be arranged through ...
Many immigrant and refugee families (e.g., Chinese, South Asian and African families) come from cultures in which it is uncommon for a child to sit and play with an adult. In these cultures, children’s play is mostly with siblings or other children, and extended family (e.g., grandparents) are responsible for taking care of the children. Also, adj...
Creating safe and caring environments for children from linguistically and culturally diverse backgrounds involves establishing a tone of respect. This means that children, parents and community members should feel as though they are welcomed members of the learning community and that their diverse identities are valued.
Establish a welcoming environment by: reflecting the linguistic and cultural diversity of all children in such things as classroom posters, pictures, props, tabletop toys, games, storybooks, media resources, musical instruments and foods served in the classroom providing opportunities for family and community members to share experiences with child...
These workshop activities provide a framework for parents of children birth to five years to explore strategies for creating language-rich environments, and create hands-on opportunities for discussion, exploration and application of strategies. This workshop will provide participants with the opportunity to: learn basic information about the lan...
These workshop activities provide a framework for parents of children birth to five years to explore strategies for creating language-rich environments, and create hands-on opportunities for discussion, exploration and application of strategies. This workshop will provide participants with the opportunity to: learn basic information about the lan...
These workshop activities provide a framework for parents of children birth to five years to explore strategies for creating language-rich environments, and create hands-on opportunities for discussion, exploration and application of strategies. This workshop will provide participants with the opportunity to: learn basic information about the lan...
These workshop activities provide a framework for parents of children birth to five years to explore strategies for creating language-rich environments, and create hands-on opportunities for discussion, exploration and application of strategies. This workshop will provide participants with the opportunity to: learn basic information about the lan...
These workshop activities provide a framework for parents of children birth to five years to explore strategies for creating language-rich environments, and create hands-on opportunities for discussion, exploration and application of strategies. This workshop will provide participants with the opportunity to: learn basic information about the lan...
These workshop activities provide a framework for parents of children birth to five years to explore strategies for creating language-rich environments, and create hands-on opportunities for discussion, exploration and application of strategies. This workshop will provide participants with the opportunity to: learn basic information about the lan...
These workshop activities provide a framework for parents of children birth to five years to explore strategies for creating language-rich environments, and create hands-on opportunities for discussion, exploration and application of strategies. This workshop will provide participants with the opportunity to: learn basic information about the lan...
These workshop activities provide a framework for parents of children birth to five years to explore strategies for creating language-rich environments, and create hands-on opportunities for discussion, exploration and application of strategies. This workshop will provide participants with the opportunity to: learn basic information about the lan...
These workshop activities provide a framework for parents of children birth to five years to explore strategies for creating language-rich environments, and create hands-on opportunities for discussion, exploration and application of strategies. This workshop will provide participants with the opportunity to: learn basic information about the lan...
These workshop activities provide a framework for parents of children birth to five years to explore strategies for creating language-rich environments, and create hands-on opportunities for discussion, exploration and application of strategies. This workshop will provide participants with the opportunity to: learn basic information about the lan...
These workshop activities provide a framework for parents of children birth to five years to explore strategies for creating language-rich environments, and create hands-on opportunities for discussion, exploration and application of strategies. This workshop will provide participants with the opportunity to: learn basic information about the lan...
These workshop activities provide a framework for parents of children birth to five years to explore strategies for creating language-rich environments, and create hands-on opportunities for discussion, exploration and application of strategies. This workshop will provide participants with the opportunity to: learn basic information about the lan...
These workshop activities provide a framework for parents of children birth to five years to explore strategies for creating language-rich environments, and create hands-on opportunities for discussion, exploration and application of strategies. This workshop will provide participants with the opportunity to: learn basic information about the lan...
These workshop activities provide a framework for parents of children birth to five years to explore strategies for creating language-rich environments, and create hands-on opportunities for discussion, exploration and application of strategies. This workshop will provide participants with the opportunity to: learn basic information about the lan...
These workshop activities provide a framework for parents of children birth to five years to explore strategies for creating language-rich environments, and create hands-on opportunities for discussion, exploration and application of strategies. This workshop will provide participants with the opportunity to: learn basic information about the lan...
These workshop activities provide a framework for parents of children birth to five years to explore strategies for creating language-rich environments, and create hands-on opportunities for discussion, exploration and application of strategies. This workshop will provide participants with the opportunity to: learn basic information about the lan...
These workshop activities provide a framework for parents of children birth to five years to explore strategies for creating language-rich environments, and create hands-on opportunities for discussion, exploration and application of strategies. This workshop will provide participants with the opportunity to: learn basic information about the lan...
These workshop activities provide a framework for parents of children birth to five years to explore strategies for creating language-rich environments, and create hands-on opportunities for discussion, exploration and application of strategies. This workshop will provide participants with the opportunity to: learn basic information about the lan...
These workshop activities provide a framework for parents of children birth to five years to explore strategies for creating language-rich environments, and create hands-on opportunities for discussion, exploration and application of strategies. This workshop will provide participants with the opportunity to: learn basic information about the lan...
These workshop activities provide a framework for parents of children birth to five years to explore strategies for creating language-rich environments, and create hands-on opportunities for discussion, exploration and application of strategies. This workshop will provide participants with the opportunity to: learn basic information about the lan...
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Help your child learn English Activities you can try at home to help your child when they are learning English Activities are focused on our exams for young learners – Pre A1 Starters, A1 Movers and A2 Flyers
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Free resources for teachers and students. Feel free to add your own materials by dropping them into the 'Contributions' file.
valuable than English. To help children learn English and maintain their home languages, you can pre-read bilingual books in small groups before you read them with the whole class. If you speak the children’s home language, you can pre-read the books in that language. If you do not speak the children’s home lan-
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Jan 21, 2021 · Moving into English : teacher resource book ... Consists chiefly of exercises designed to help Spanish-speaking children learn English ... Pdf_module_version
People also ask
Does 'Learn English Now' help learners?
How to help children learn their home languages?
How do you motivate a child to learn English?
How can I help my child learn more about the world?
What is Learn English Now?
How long does it take a child to learn English?
This book will help learners during the Learn English Now course. It contains activities for each lesson and other helpful resources. However, learners cannot learn English from this book alone. For this reason, it is important that you practice English diligently in between classes.
