When To Teach Your Child English - Raising Bilingual Kids - The English Fluency Guide

Well, hello there. It is Drew Badger here, the English Fluency Guide, and I am outside

at a park today. It's harder to find places to shoot a video inside because of the coronavirus

but out at the park, it's actually not that bad. It's a nice day actually here. I'm sitting

under a cherry blossom tree but it's a little bit late in the season for that. Anyway, I

recorded a video with my daughter, that was the last video I believe that's on my channel

but people were asking me questions about how can they teach their kids at home and

when they should start teaching their kids English. So I wanted to make a quick video

about that and we'll see if this is an interesting conversation you want to have. I can answer

your questions in the comments below. So let me know about that. But anyway, I thought

I would just give a quick video about that and let me know if you'd like to know more

about this topic. Often people don't realize it and I want you

to think about this, especially if you don't have any kids right now. The principles for

learning as an adult learner. If you want to teach yourself English or learn, this is

the same way I teach or if you're a teacher out there, there's really no difference between

teaching an adult and teaching a child English if you follow the same principles about learning

like a native or teaching like a native, the way that I teach. Forgive me if you hear some

kids screaming at the park over here, but again, the principles are the same and so

I'll talk a little bit about that. But first, I was having an interesting conversation

with a friend of mine who is from Canada out here and he's also married to a Japanese woman.

So my wife is Japanese but he and I were talking about our own kids, so we each have two children.

I have two daughters and he has a daughter and a son. And when I was asking him what

he was doing for teaching his own kids because he and I actually used to teach together in

the classroom many years ago, he actually didn't teach his older daughter English for

I think maybe the first two years that she was born or right after she was born. So the

first two years she was alive, I should say, with the family, they weren't really teaching

her English. They would speak it sometimes but they weren't really using English at home.

And he notices even now, of course, they speak English all the time and that her pronunciation

is still a little bit off. But his son, they started teaching him English from the day

he was born. Little kids, even from I believe six months

old can tell the difference between what language you're speaking. So as a parent, you can be

speaking to them in English or Japanese as the case is in our home or whatever the languages

are but children are very good at noticing the differences between those and they understand

a lot, even if they can't express very well. So thinking about this idea, when people are

asking me when they should start teaching their kids, I say as soon as possible. So

from very early age and also some people argue that maybe the father or the mother should

only speak their language, whatever that is or the couple or the parents. I believe you

should be using both of the languages, however you use them in an every day conversation

just because you want your child to understand what's normal and your child will kind of...

This is an interesting side thing, but most kids in America, if they have some breakfast

cereal, they will have maybe put some milk on that cereal as well.

But if you give to a young child cereal with cranberry juice or something like that, they

will learn to eat that and assume that's normal. So whatever the child believes is their normal

speaking situation. If everybody is using both languages and you can switch between

the two very easily, then the child will learn to do that as well, without there being any

problem. Now, this is especially true in a language like Japanese, where there's more

of what a man would say in Japanese and more what a woman would say. So if I'm not using

any Japanese in the house, then my daughters wouldn't get that same different language

that a man or a woman would be using, if only my wife was speaking to them. Hopefully we're

not getting too much wind in the microphone here. But anyway, thinking about that idea

again, the best time to start teaching them as soon as possible.

So you don't have to wait for them to be a certain age. And again, the point is to make

it normal for them to be speaking English. Now, I know another thing that people worry

about is if they make mistakes. So even my own wife whose English is really very good,

she'll worry about saying something incorrectly. And then teaching that to our daughter. Usually,

she'll make, the occasional mistake in the same way that I'll make a mistake in Japanese

but we have a culture in the house of making mistakes and helping correct each other as

we learn something. So I don't apologize about my making mistakes and I don't have her say

anything like that either, but we do learn something. So if I say, "Oh yeah, you shouldn't

say that." or she tells me, "Oh, you shouldn't say that other thing." the children are learning

at the same time. So if you have that culture and whether, one

of you in your family is a native English speaker or not, it doesn't really matter because

you can still get those same examples of what's correct from just watching TV shows and things

like that. And what I do recommend is especially if you or your partner or whatever your husband

or wife is not a native speaker that you should be watching more programming, especially TV

shows or movies, things like that. Specifically for native English speaking children, it's

a little bit different especially watching TV shows out here in Japan. We will sometimes

watch English TV shows that are specifically designed to teach kids English but this is

more for Japanese kids. And there was a lot of Japanese in the TV show itself. So it's

a little bit trickier when you're trying to teach someone a language but you're using

the other language to teach that. So a native English show like Sesame Street,

this is designed for native English speakers and children are going to get this kind of

all the things that they're learning in English without having to translate anything. So hopefully

this is not confusing but the basic idea is that you don't have to wait until any certain

time. You want to make it easy and make it normal. And especially if they're making mistakes,

that kind of thing, you want to also show the child it's normal to correct those mistakes.

So it's normal to make the mistakes and it's normal to correct them. And you can look and

see what you're getting from various TV shows and then take that and then just practice

using those same sentences. So if you're speaking along with the TV, then your child will do

the same thing and it becomes very natural and it's fun and you don't have to worry about

trying to make it like a lesson or something like that. So it should be informal and fun

the same way you're using your own language when you're walking around the house.

Now, one last tip, I'll give you. Again, I said earlier in the video about when you're

trying to teach people, you should be using the same principles or the same way of teaching

that you would teach a child in your native language that you would teach an adult or

that you would learn yourself as a learner of a second language. So for the students

I teach, I don't teach them through their native language. So I don't teach Japanese

out here or teach English to Japanese speakers through Japanese, I use English to teach them

English. And a very simple way you do that with children, especially if you're trying

to teach them in a different language is to make sure there's an obvious connection between

the vocabulary and the thing you want them to understand.

So I've talked about this in videos before, but as an example, if you're in a regular

English classroom and you show a flashcard to someone, let's say I'm showing a picture

of a clown and he's juggling some balls or something and standing and doing some dancing

or something like that. So that's one flashcard. Now, if I say a word to a child or a non-native

speaker about what that is... Oh no, somebody is in trouble.

Well, that's what you get when you record in the park, but it is a nice park. Oh no.

Well, I hope they're okay. They look okay. I think somebody that just lost their toy,

I think. But anyway, so as an example, you're looking at something that's complex the mind

doesn't really understand what you're specifically talking about. If I just say the word, blah,

so this is a word in a different language, and I'm showing you a fairly complex idea.

You don't know if I'm talking about the clown or what the clown is doing, or if it's a verb

or a noun or whatever the thing is. So you want to make very obvious connections between

the vocabulary and the thing that you're talking about. So if you're talking about colors,

for instance, you wouldn't just teach a color by itself. You don't hold up like a red crayon

and say red, you would have a few different other crayons, or you would have a few different

other objects that are also read that you can teach that the same color or whatever

that thing is you want to teach. So that's one basic example, but you should

be thinking about that same thing. The test is whether it's understandable in English

or not. So remember that as you're going out to teach kids and using a very basic idea

of something like contrast so this is like black and white. So we understand darkness

by noticing light, or we understand cold by understanding heat. So we learn both of these

at the same time, rather than just trying to teach just one of them. So this is the

reason I teach that to natives or to non-natives as well. Really, I teach the same way to everyone

because I don't want them to think about English as a second language. Typically in a classroom,

you will learn English through a different language and that's why so many people have

to hesitate and think and translate and they get nervous.

They forget their words when they speak. So if you don't want to have those problems,

you have to learn all in English, the natural native way. So that's exactly what I help

people do. And if you have not seen any of the videos on my channel, I've got over 500

of them with lots of examples about how to do this for vocabulary or grammar or pronunciation,

all the things like that. Now, specifically for kids, if you're looking for a great way

to help them learn, I recommend Frederick. This is the app that it took us 10 years to

develop and build this thing. And we're still working on it right now, but it's the best

way to use contrast to teach the sounds of English, whether you're trying to teach this

to a young children or you're trying to teach adults with it as well, you can click on the

link in the description or in the upper right of this video, if you'd like to learn more

about that app but it's really working wonders. So a lot of people are enjoying it. It's great

for kids as well as adults who want to improve their pronunciation and learn more about reading

and spelling, that kind of thing. But the app more than just for what it does, you can

see how it's teaching you. So it's letting people connect different ideas and make comparisons

and contrasts with different sounds so that they can actually teach themselves the rules

all in English without having to use any translations or anything like that. Well, again, this was

just a very quick overview. I wanted to talk about again, when you should be teaching people,

especially young children, you don't have to wait. Don't worry about making mistakes,

make a culture of the effort, that's the more important thing. So if you're really trying

to encourage your children to learn, don't make a big deal about mistakes.

Just say, "Oh, maybe that wasn't correct, but we should use this thing instead." Make

sure you have native examples of that from a TV show, if you don't have a native English

speaker in your family. Anyway, I hope you have enjoyed this. If you have, please click

that like button and subscribe and click the bell icon so you can get notified about future

videos. If you have specific questions about this, let me know, just post them down in

the comments and I'll check those out. Let me know if you have any questions about how

to help kids or if you have any specific questions about even older children and how you want

to help them learn. Again, most of the ideas are pretty similar, no matter who you're teaching,

it's all about making it natural and fun and all in English. Anyway, hope you have enjoyed

it. If you have again, click that like button. And if you'd like to continue learning with

the English Fluency Guide, please do these three simple things right now.

1. Click on this link to subscribe to my YouTube channel for over 500 free videos.

2. Click on this link to download my #1 eBook guide to fast fluency, FREE! And…

3. Click here to watch the most popular video on English fluency here on YouTube!