By Susanna Zaraysky
Photo Credit: Jackie Bucci
Do you want your kids to naturally pick up various languages? Great! How about turning on the stereo? It will be much easier.
I know this from experience. My parents drilled me on Russian grammar when I was a kid and I hated it. But I went on to speak seven languages (English, Russian, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, and Serbo-Croatian) with perfect or almost perfect accents.
How did I do it?
Answer: Music and other media! Honestly!
Yes, I did study grammar, but I got into the groove of my target languages by passively and actively listening to lyrical music in those languages.
You can do the same to help get your kids learn a language while having fun at the same time.
Why Use Music?
Music is fun. We are all musical beings even if we can’t dance to save our life or we can’t even sing “Happy Birthday” in tune!
It is one of the easiest ways for children to learn. Most of us remember the ABC song we learned as children, but it is not uncommon for people to forget what their spouse asked them to buy at the grocery store, much less remember the order of the periodic table. Perhaps if there had been a “catchy” tune presented in our chemistry classes, we just might be able to recite that table as adults.
Music sticks. Let the sticky power of music get your target language to stick in your children’s brains.
1. Change the way you think about music
Think of your target language like music. In his book, Musicophilia, Neurologist Dr. Oliver Sacks has shown that music engages more parts of the brain than language. Your children are more likely to remember new words if they hear them in a song rather than memorizing a word list.
Children seem to remember musical tunes and jingles quite well. If you allow your children to listen to music in other tongues he/she will automatically sing along without any understanding of the meaning.
When you find the English translation of the foreign language lyrics, talk to your kids about what the songs or lyrics are about. If the song is about eating foods, show the foods to your child and have them touch the foods to have both a visual and tactile experience of the new word.
2. Listen first
There’s a reason we have two ears and one mouth. Listen first, speak later, then learn the grammar and write.
Don’t rush your kids into speaking. Let them learn the sounds of your languages first.
It does not matter if at first they do not understand the lyrics. They may start singing along without even knowing what they are singing. They are not only learning the rhythm of the language, they are learning new vocabulary.
Have your kids relax and close their eyes. Turn off the lights. Let them lie down, sit in a comfortable position or play. Do not ask them to try to understand the words, just let them listen. Their mind needs to be calm in order to absorb the sounds. Their ears need no other distractions to let them properly hear all the high, medium and low frequencies of the language. Do this regularly.
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Music certainly helps, but like Susanna says, it’s about pairing it with other media and learning experiences, e.g. touching objects, doing the actions to bring the sounds (words) to life. We found one CD that we loved http://shop.nationaltrust.org.uk/products/children-039-s-favourites-cd/527/ and we’ve played that almost on repeat on car journeys. Our toddler still loves the CD and is getting very good with both words and actions. however, would this help him actually ‘speak’ the language, i.e. move on from reciting a set sequence of words to using them proactively? I have my doubts, and it would certainly require a lot of thought to get a spread of songs that cover a lot of everyday vocabulary.
Will it help with pronounciation, intonation and language flow / rhythm? Undoubtably.
My father taught himself English through Beatles songs, but it was my mom translating words and sentences that helped him understand and proactively use them. I have teenage memories of sitting down with my friends and translating pop songs with a dictionary, but without the extra dimension (in this case the dictonary) it would have meant nothing. I also have near perfect pronounciation in Spanish through having listened to lots of Latin American music. However, my grammar – despite a degree in Spanish – is pants, so the bottom line is that I still can’t speak it properly, no matter what’s on my CD Player / Ipod.