WAYS TO HELP YOUR CHILD IN AMBRIT'S LANGUAGE PROGRAMME
The following suggestions were offered to parents by Dr. Virginia Rojas, and are key ideas to best help emerging bilinguals:
1.Maintain the Mother Tongue Parents should always enrich language with their own mother tongue. An elaborate, developed, mother tongue will significantly help the acquisition of a second language. Reading to your child in your mother tongue is extremely important.
2.Be Bilingual Models. Be consistent in maintaining the bilingual model within the family.
3. Supply Multicultural Models. When you travel, bring back language and cultural material to share with your child. Talk about the languages and cultures that surround you.
4. Give Wait Time Five to seven years of instruction is required to achieve academic competence in English and other second languages.
5. Clap for every Effort to Victory Just as we delight when an infant says his first words, remember to continually praise your child for every step forward in language acquisition.
6. Create Language Playtime. To fully enjoy a language, remember it must also be fun. Playtime in English is important. Encourage opportunities for your child to develop hobbies in the second language. Attend a summer camp or join a creative arts club after school.
7. Do Not Create Anxiety . Give your child time to acquire the second language. Don't pass on indecisiveness about bilingualism to your children, they will certainly feel and react to your doubts. Such doubts may well interfere with your child's progress in the new language.
8. Plan Bilingualism Both parents must fully support the decision they have made to provide a bilingual education for their child. If one parent is in disagreement with the educational plan taken, acquisition of the second language will probably be less successful. The family must be committed to the decision they have made.
MAKE USE OF TESTS IN NATIVE LANGUAGE AS WELL AS ENGLISH
We recommend that parents participate as much as possible by discussing themes and topics being studied in various subjects, in their native language. It is highly beneficial when support material in the native language can be purchased as it reinforces the understanding of content, while at the same time facilitates the student's language acquisition.
Many Middle School English texts are literary classics and are likely to be available in the native language of the E.S.L. student. It is highly recommended that parents purchase versions of the relevant books in their own language. Film versions on video may also be a valuable support. A student who is reading a Shakespearean play in both languages will undoubtedly come to a more thorough and enriched understanding of the play.
