How can you teach kids to speak English fluently

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Forum -> Chinuch, Education & Schooling

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amother

Mon, Aug 12 2024, 12:19 pm

If they are not in an English speaking environment?

Are there any social English speaking after school groups that kids can attend?

Any ideas?

amother

DarkPurple

Mon, Aug 12 2024, 12:21 pm

amother OP wrote:

If they are not in an English speaking environment?

Are there any social English speaking after school groups that kids can attend?

Any ideas?

It would probably help to know your location.

Israeli40

Sun, Aug 18 2024, 1:51 pm

We're not in an english speaking environment.

We speak english at home from when they're born, and when they begin learning Hebrew in school, we continue to only allow english at home, unless they're with friends.

We try to read lots of english books to them. It teaches phrases, slang, concepts. Amelia Bedilia is amazing for teaching nuances of english. I have to stop a few times a page to explain it to them the first time, but they laugh their heads off and love it.

bookstore15

Sun, Aug 18 2024, 2:32 pm

Just keep speaking English at home, they'll pick it up

behappy2

Sun, Aug 18 2024, 4:13 pm

Speak to them in English and send them to activities where most kids or all kids are English speaking

amother

Hawthorn

Sun, Aug 18 2024, 4:14 pm

My parents got all of my brothers after school tutors to teach them English.
My son came after several girls & because we talk so much English at home between ourselves, he's now 5 & has a great English.

Molly Weasley

Sun, Aug 18 2024, 9:50 pm

Best you can do is speak English to them at home, exclusively. You want them to start "thinking" in English

amother

Lavender

Sun, Aug 18 2024, 10:24 pm

Kids need at least 500 words of receptive language in order to start speaking. So talking in English is the best thing you can do for them.

Also read books in English, watch videos in English, play games using English words (even just "stop" and "go"). Get some interesting looking comic books in English to incentivize them to want to hear/read them.

(In my house, it's the opposite, I am trying to teach my kids to speak Yiddish fluently. That's harder because there is no "street" here to support me, very few videos in Yiddish, and a much more limited amount of books. I am still glad to say that my teens often speak to me in Yiddish and they are more comfortable reading Yiddish books than I am. So it's definitely possible!)

amother

Cobalt

Sun, Aug 18 2024, 10:25 pm

It is hard and doesn't work for everyone.
We live in Israel and speak English at home. My kids only spoke English until age 4 (They didn't speak Hebrew at all.) Now my 9 and 7 year old speak broken English and prefer to speak Hebrew even though I have not stopped talking to them in English.

Elfrida

Mon, Aug 19 2024, 2:17 am

What you can do is speak to them in English, and give them a foundation in the language. If you can, send them to private English classes after school, to build up their reading and writing. Girls learn in school, but the level might be low, if there aren't many English speakers in your area. Boys in the chareidi system don't normally learn in school, so it especially important for them.

You can't force them to use English oit of the house, and as their environment becomes predominantly Hebrew speaking, that's what they will use. However, if they have the foundation of speaking English from a young age, they'll be able to improve very rapidly if and when it becomes important to them.

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