Introducing another language at our centre

[Miss Kerry]

Recently I had the pleasure of replacing our kindergaten teacher in her room while she was on holiday.

During this time the children were involved in various extra activities; tennis, soccer, dancing and Japanese.

Through conversations with parents I discovered most liked the idea of their children learning another language but many did not want Japanese so were hesistant to pay for it and would prefer a particular other language be taught instead. The other issue for many of the families is the cost - most of these lessons are around $12 per child and some do not want their children missing out so are paying for ALL of them!

After discussions with the Director, owner and colleagues it has been decided we will begin offering this language all the parents are wanting by using our existing staff and moving the staff for the period the lesson takes (moving the person who is a native speaker to the preschool room for the duration of the class). It has been decided that no extra charge will be made as we are using our own staff and we want all the children participating.

I'm absolutely stoked with this idea as it will be good for our centre, good for our children and great for publicity.

My biggest question is how do we get started? I want to help as much as possible as it was my idea, however I will not be teaching the class as I feel a native speaker is preferable. What resources should we use? Should she speak in English as well? How are we going to keep such a large group entertained? What do we start with? Do we need stories, CD-Roms, DVD's, Music ect.

My personal opinion is that we need a bit more structure to the lesson plan for this than we usually do during the day as it's likely to be a half hour block per week.

Seems like there will lots of EYLF outcomes we can use too .

Would love to hear your opinions.

[fchaudari76]

Great thing teaching children a second language. May I ask what language the parents are wanting?
We had children learning French and the lady was amazing, she had flash cards of words and pictures...she always did one word. She taught them colours, counting, objects. She would speak in English and say the words in English then French so the children made a connection.
At this age keep it simple. You can support the language by finding CDs with simple songs in the language that maybe the children can learn.
Stories/DVDs in my opinion will be no help as the children will not comprehend what they are seeing/hearing.

[cathiek]

I agree with Fe-fe. Keeping things simple is the way to go. Just do things they normally do, like say hi,thank you & bye or whatever using the other language as well. Many of my kids love Dora the Explorer, so although we don't teach another language we say hello, thank you, happy birthday and other simple words in spanish.
If the weather is nice the language teacher can go outside with the kids and teach them slide/sandpit etc in the other language. If you & the other staff learn some of these words too it would be good.
Simple nursery rhymes and songs in the other language would be excellent. They can have accompanying colouring ins to match the nursery rhyme and take this home with the words in the other language on it for mum/dad to see.
At a school I taught at before my kids learned french and we all loved the word for butterfly so much (papillon) we used that for the rest of the year
Cathie

[Miss Kerry]

thank you fefe76 for your ideas,

The area our centre is in has many Muslim families, so the parents are requesting they learn Arabic. We are very fortunate to have a native speaker already employed at our centre.

The lady who teaches Japanese only takes 6 - 8 children for each lesson and speaks only in Japanese.

I'm thinking the approach you have suggested would be better as the children know this staff member speaks English and as you said it would help them make connections.

I will endevour to purchase flash cards or make them myself, speak with the prep Arabic teachers at my son's school and try to get as many hints as possible.

I'm so excitied and getting a bit carried away and in some ways wish I could be teaching them!

[fchaudari76]

Interesting and maybe a wise choice with Arabic as with the way the world is going I think the best languages to know would be Chinese & Arabic. I myself am from a muslim family (though I am non practising) I can read Arabic and understand a bit as it is similar to Urdu which I speak fluently.
With Arabic it will be harder since the alphabet itself does not use English letters nor can you just write 1, 2, 3 and just teach the names as the children will have to learn to recognise a whole new script + reading from right to left as opposed to left to right.
Again keep it simple and repeat every word in English then Arabic
With Arabic you also need to realise that there are subtle differences of the language as you go from one Arabic speaking area to another so Saudi Arabic is slightly different to UAE Arabic... so try and keep it as generic as possible.
Where is your native Arabic speaking teacher from?
Let us know how it goes.
Learning a second language is a great thing to have and the earlier you can start with kids the better.

some links that may help you -

http://www.yemenlinks.com/Theme/ALM_Flashcards
http://www.joebradford.net/teaching-arabic-children-1/
http://dinolingo.com/languages/arabic.html
http://talibiddeenjr.wordpress.com/2008 ... -lesson-1/

[Miss Kerry]

Thank you fefe76 for all the wonderful links. You are right that there are many different dialects of Arabic, but if we either use Egyptian or formal Arabic is is widely understood. I have just realised that many of the worksheets and flash cards here would work if we either added Arabic or even if we used the ones with English on them and told the children the Arabic words.

Thank you also to cathiek for your ideas.

Think I might study the Japanese lesson dairy for ideas, as I know they have at times made craft items rather than sitting learning as a group time.

Will let you know how it all goes .

[Lorina]

I think children learning a second language at such a young age is very beneficial! They are able to absorb so much in their little minds... A few other languages which are easy for the children to learn include French, Spanish and Italian. All these three languages are so similar to one another and the pronunciation of the words are simple.

Also for Spanish you could use Dora the explorer and Diego which is very popular with children under 5 years of age. During group times I would probably start by singing simple songs that include some Spanish (for example) in it... During the day I would probably replace some English words with Spanish ones...I'd start off with a couple then increase as the children learn more. For e.g. Would you like Leche (milk) or Agua (water)?

,
L.A