The American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages’ annual conference last week attracted more than 7,000 attendees this year. This must be roughly about 50% of its current membership – WOW! What an amazing turnout for an educational organization, and especially a foreign language organization!

It comes to show the commitment of world language educators even in these uncertain times for anything education, and also the attractiveness and quality of the workshops, events, exhibitions, and networking opportunities at this great conference.

My colleague from the preschool English/Dual Language Learning world, Karen Nemeth (author of Many Languages: One Classroom) and I presented a workshop for those interested in the early years (ages zero to five). Here is a slideshow of our presentation, “How to Teach Languages to Toddlers and Preschoolers:”

We invite you to post your questions or comments below.

Best,

Ana Lomba

Pin It

It’s all over the news these days:

Not only are young children linguistic pros by nature, but learning languages makes them smarter too!

• “Hearing Bilingual: How Babies Sort Out Language” – New York Times
• “The Linguistic Genius of Babies” – TED
• “Bilingualism is Good Exercise for Kids (and Adults)”– NBC News, Education Nation
• “The Bilingual Advantage” – New York Times
• “5 Facts About Bilingualism” – Huffington Post
• “The benefits of bilingualism, now and later” – Montgomery News
• “How To Help Your Child’s Brain Grow Up Strong” – NPR

Those are fantastic news for young children learning languages – but what the news doesn’t tell you is that there are good and not so good ways to introduce a child to a new language.

In fact, some practices out there are so bad that, if you are not careful, you may end up flipping the coin and turning your little language Einstein into little language Frankenstein!

Let me tell you about a few common practices that may be hurting your child right now:

• Are you using flashcards with your child? That is, showing your child a card with an image and asking the child for the name of the image in the target language?
• Is he or she playing games that teach a foreign language word here and there? (For example, you touch a moving object and you hear its name)
• Are you watching videos that translate words back and forth? (“It is an elephant” / “C’est un éléphant”)

Well, there you go! With rote learning practices like those, you are well on your way to turn your child into a linguistic dummy.

I’ll tell you why most flashcard-style products are BAD NEWS for children learning languages in a moment, but first let me share with you 3 tips not to fall under their spell:

Tip #1: Learn to Recognize Flashcards Regardless of the Package

As the humorous Spanish proverb says, “Te conozco Bacalao aunque vayas disfrazado,” which literally means, “I know you Cod, even in that costume.”

Pin It

Have you noticed that codfish has a heavy smell and taste? It is hard to disguise it in other dishes[1]…

Well, you may not be currently aware of the strong smell and taste of flashcards, but they are certainly stinky and fishy too!

What are language-learning flashcards? Flashcards’ main use is to help people memorize foreign language words or phrases. In the case of young children, the most commonly used flashcards are colors, numbers, days of the week, animals, etc.

What you may not realize is that – just like cod – flashcards can be disguised within expensive yellow boxes, fancy CDs, DVDs, TV programs a la Dora the Explorer, mobile applications… you name it!

Ah, but don’t let the glamour deceive you! Not even if you see news about these types of programs on CNN, CNBC, Fox News, Univision or even on the front page of the New York Times. Your child is still learning colors, numbers, clothes, animals, etc.

No matter what the sophisticated look, a flashcard is a flashcard is a flashcard. “I know you Flashcard, even in that costume.” Remember to always look beyond the packaging.

So that’s tip #1: Learn to recognize the cod when you see it! The flashcard approach has permeated other media, but the goal remains the same: memorizing small segments of language out of context.

Tip #2: Understand Why There Is This Flashcard Mentality

The flashcard mentality originates in the (false) idea that a language is a group of words or small parts of language put together.

Therefore, after you have mastered a few colors, numbers, food, furniture, and similar stuff, all you have to do in order to master a language is… you bet! String words!

Word 1 + Word 2 + Word 3 + Word 4 = A sentence!

For example:

La + manzana + está + sobre + la + mesa = La manzana está sobre la mesa.

¡Bravo!

The next step is to change some words by others. For example, “manzana” (apple) for “naranja” (orange), or “sobre” (over) for “debajo de” (under), etc.

I think you get the idea. There are different variations of this approach, by the way.

In reality, languages are like forests. You won’t ‘get’ a forest by aligning trees in rows, and you won’t ‘get’ a language by aligning words in rows either. Better to park the tractor and leave the row cultivation to the farmers!

So that’s tip #2: Realize that the flashcard approach places undue merit on words and small pieces of language. Languages are much more than strings of words, and this is not the best way to learn them – although one would think so, judging by the gigantic flashcard industry.

Tip #3: Don’t Let Yourself Become a Flashcard!

You don’t want to stink like codfish yourself, right?

Unfortunately, you may be doing this unconsciously…

Given flashcards’ omnipresence and the astute marketing behind them, it should come as no surprise that many people end up internalizing the message and start teaching and talking in a flashcard manner – go to YouTube and watch a few videos of people teaching or learning languages and you’ll see what I mean.

At home, you may find yourself:

• Showing a thing, saying its name in Italian and then translating it in English immediately.
• Or singing English songs with a Spanish word here or there.
• Or reading books in English that contain German expressions every once in while.
• Or playing with your child a game on the iPad that teaches Arabic words while waiting at the pediatrician’s office.

See what I mean?

And if you don’t do it yourself, you may send your child to a program where that’s what they do – memorize lists of words, even if in an animated fashion.

But, Why Are Flashcards So Bad for Your Children’s Language Development?

Because the time you spend using flashcards is time not spent using fluent language, and time is ticking…

Remember that I told you that young children have the very best language learning brain? Then, why spoon-feeding them words? Why not learning fluent language? Why wasting your child’s incredible linguistic potential on flashcards?

This is what happens when you spoon-feed your child words and phrases:

• Your child doesn’t need to apply higher levels of cognition to figure out how the language works – to ‘get’ the forest.
• Your child doesn’t need to increase his or her usual range of attention in order to stay alert and understand the meaning.
• Your child doesn’t need to get over the fear of saying something wrong or sounding funny.
• Your child doesn’t need to make the effort to understand native speakers.
• Your child doesn’t need to make the effort to engage other speakers in a conversation (or play with them).
• Your child doesn’t need to make the effort to understand a new concept explained in the other language.

[By the way, it is challenging tasks like these ones that make of language learning one of the best exercises for the brain and also for social development.]

And then, there is the last drop in the bucket:

Your child will get used to flashcards and will give up easily when trying anything more complex than learning words or small chunks of language (“This is too difficult!”).

The result?

If you are not careful and continue down the flashcard road you will end up turning your little linguistic genius into a linguistic dummy. And let me tell you, it will be very hard to change your child’s negative attitude toward learning in a fluent manner after the damage is done (the same thing happens to adults as well, by the way).

A second result is that your child will not experience the intellectual growth that new research shows in children learning languages. Intellectual growth typically takes place when you challenge yourself and get out of your comfort zone, not when you are spoon-fed knowledge.

As you can see, not all language-learning approaches are created equal. In the case of flashcards, you are simply wasting your money – and your child’s prime time for language learning, which is much worse.

*On a final note to this blog post, I want to clarify that flashcards can be beneficial, but only if used smartly. I will talk more about it in a future blog. *

Until then, please share this blog post with other parents and teachers of young children learning languages.

Together, we can defeat the Flashcard Goliath.

Best wishes,

Ana Lomba

P. S.: As a program owner told me once, “Since parents don’t know the difference, why should I care?” Please realize that the Mighty Flashcard is the ultimate cash-machine in language learning. Cashing! – YOU and your child may be unsuspected victims if you are not aware of this.

P.S.S: Establishing good language-learning strategies and habits is crucial in early childhood. It will be VERY hard to change habits once they are well established. The moment to act is NOW. You will never get those early years back.

P.S.S.S: If you want to get informed about best practices in early language education, join my list on this website and follow me on Twitter and Facebook.

******

Ana Lomba is changing the way people think about and interact with young children learning languages. Her Parents’ Choice award-winning books, lively songs, games, stories, and mobile applications are quickly becoming favorites with teachers and parents who want to nurture young children’ inborn language abilities. Key to the success of Ana’s break-through method is a focus on the family as the ideal environment for early language learning – even her signature curriculum for language programs is built with parents in mind. Ana has taught toddler, preschool, elementary school, and college-level Spanish courses, and held leadership positions with some of the most influential language organizations in the US, including ACTFL, NNELL and FLENJ. After graduating with a law degree from Spain, her native country, Ana pursued graduate studies at Binghamton University, Princeton University, and NYU.

 

Storytelling is one of the most enjoyable and effective techniques to teach languages to young children.

When you read or tell stories to children you immerse them in rich language in context, which in turn leads to higher levels of sophistication in speech and literacy. Since this is true for both the first and the second language, it makes sense to introduce children to the best possible language experience from the very moment they start learning a language!

My interest in storytelling began almost ten years ago when I attended a workshop for early childhood educators at the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) conference.

I immediately understood the great potential that storytelling held for language learning, but I had first to deal with a great obstacle: my Spanish students would not understand anything if I presented stories the way I saw that day.

Therefore, I would have to come up with a different approach. In addition, I wanted to engage the help of the parents in my classes to continue the language learning process at home, and this meant that the stories would have to be easy and appealing enough for adults as well.

The first thing I did was to choose the type of story that I was going to use. I decided to go with traditional stories known all over the world. I grew up with these stories and so did generations of people here in the US and in other countries (most of these stories are over two hundred years old). I figured that the familiarity would be essential in creating an instant connection to the language.

Secondly, I tackled the structure of the stories. Language learners do better when they develop conversational skills alongside literacy skills—imagine how it is for a young child to be engaged in reading or writing activities when he can’t even talk to the kid sitting next to him! Therefore, I decided to shorten the narration and make it highly descriptive and include lots of action and conversations among the characters.

The stories started to look like theater scripts, except that they included some narration as well—I believe that the balance between narration and dialogue makes the stories more effective as language learning tools.

The third step I took was to personalize the stories to suit my style of teaching. After researching different versions of the stories (tons of hours spent at the local library), I removed parts that I thought were not essential or that I didn’t like (some were really spooky or inappropriate!), re-wrote other parts, and introduced lots of humor and fun twists. This made the stories less predictable and much more engaging. One of the most important elements of education is motivation, and I wanted my students to have a great time in my classes.

I’m describing this as a sequence of steps, but in reality I was trying and testing everything in my classes and changing things as I went along.

The first story that I wrote and presented during a storytelling session in my class was The Three Little Pigs (actually, the story within the story that you can read in the e-storybook available in my website).

My students had a blast with it! Can you imagine the teacher wearing a wolf snout and talking to three little pigs on a board?

This first attempt was very short though, and it was over before I could get the whole “juice” out of it. I then decided to extend the stories so that I could work on different topics. In order to do so, I begun to think in terms of scenes—each scene to be acted out and reinforced with many different activities during a longer period of time.

The stories became more theatrical, and I would act them out using wigs, masks and all sorts of props. This made the experience even more fun and engaging for my students.

These are the same stories that I offer as e-storybooks in my website and as books in Amazon.com and other stores. Which means that you can now use the stories the same way, that is, in a theatrical manner. You will be surprised at the magic that happens when you do that in your class or with your children at home!

You will then realize how powerful storytelling is for language learning.

There are many more things that I could tell you about my approach to storytelling, but I hope you find this brief introduction informative and useful.

P.S.: To subscribe to the e-storybooks, click on “Kids Learn Spanish,” “Kids Learn French,” or “Kids Learn Chinese” on the navigation bar according to your chosen language and follow the instructions to purchase through PayPal.

P.S.S.: The stories are bilingual with English, and can also be used in reverse (that is, to learn English from Chinese or the other two languages). The audio is by native professional actresses.

******

Ana Lomba is changing the way people think about and interact with young children learning languages. Her Parents’ Choice award-winning books, lively songs, games, stories, and mobile applications are quickly becoming favorites with teachers and parents who want to nurture young children’ inborn language abilities. Key to the success of Ana’s break-through method is a focus on the family as the ideal environment for early language learning – even her signature curriculum for language programs is built with parents in mind. Ana has taught toddler, preschool, elementary school, and college-level Spanish courses, and held leadership positions with some of the most influential language organizations in the US, including ACTFL, NNELL and FLENJ. After graduating with a law degree from Spain, her native country, Ana pursued graduate studies at Binghamton University, Princeton University, and NYU.

If your goal is to go way beyond drilling your students with vocabulary words (so fashionable these days), this is the guide for you.

Young children have the best brain as well as the best disposition to learn languages. It is a shame – and a waste of time – to expose them to isolated words without a context.

Memorizing vocabulary flashcards, using constant translation, a focus on grammar, and other widespread techniques used with young children today are not only inefficient, but also detrimental in many instances.

The thing is, if you make it too easy, your students will not learn. If you make it too hard, they won’t learn either. When teaching young children Spanish, there is a “just right” or “al dente” point of teaching that brings out the best results.

To achieve high levels of proficiency in Spanish or other languages, young children need to be exposed to – and be helped to use – fluent language. If you teach your students to say, let’s say, “un perro” (“a dog”), this will in no way help them understand people talking about dogs in Spanish, much less talk themselves about dogs in Spanish.

Shouldn’t fluency be the real goal?

Watch this video introduction to the Spanish for Preschoolers E-Guide to discover how you can use my favorite “easy immersion” techniques to create lesson plans that target real fluency from day one:

 

 

 

P.S: Please note that the Spanish for Preschoolers E-Guide is targeted to teachers. I will soon offer a different edition for parents as well as one for people who want to start their own program teaching Spanish. The content is appropriate for teachers of toddlers, preschoolers, kindergarteners and early elementary school students.

P.S.S: If you want to learn how to plan your instruction with a fluency goal in mind, claim your own copy of the Spanish for Preschoolers E-Guide.

The guide comes with a 100% money-back guarantee, so if you don’t like it, just write to me and ask for a refund. As easy as that!

******

Ana Lomba is changing the way people think about and interact with young children learning languages. Her Parents’ Choice award-winning books, lively songs, games, stories, and mobile applications are quickly becoming favorites with teachers and parents who want to nurture young children’ inborn language abilities. Key to the success of Ana’s break-through method is a focus on the family as the ideal environment for early language learning – even her signature curriculum for language programs is built with parents in mind. Ana has taught toddler, preschool, elementary school, and college-level Spanish courses, and held leadership positions with some of the most influential language organizations in the US, including ACTFL, NNELL and FLENJ. After graduating with a law degree from Spain, her native country, Ana pursued graduate studies at Binghamton University, Princeton University, and NYU.

On a recent Wednesday evening a couple of weeks ago I had the pleasure of participating in a very interesting panel discussion focused on early bilingual education in Manhattan hosted by New York Family magazine. The audience was a mix of bilingual and monolingual parents exploring the best ways to introduce their kids to a second language.

Affluent, highly educated and highly motivated, these parents certainly understand that by selecting bilingual schools or programs they are making one of the best investments in their children’s future. A few of the parents had lived in different countries and spoke several languages themselves.

There were three main points that I covered in my presentation:

• Early childhood is the best time to introduce languages

• Parents are the catalysts in their children’s language education

• Parents can be excellent language teachers, even if they are monolingual

Early childhood is the best time to introduce languages

If you follow my blog, you are already aware that early childhood is the best time to introduce languages. New studies focused on the preschool years are coming out all the time, and in the panel discussion I made reference to the video by Dr. Patricia Kuhl focused on her research on babies’ amazing sound discrimination prowess that I highly recommend to you as well.

Parents are the catalysts in their children’s language education

This second point is a bit more subtle. Let me explain.

In many parts of the world (e.g. Europe) it is taken for granted that children will study a second language, and world languages are part of the core curriculum from the first years of school.

This is not the case here in the States, which means that it is up to the parents to take the initiative if their children are going to get off to a great start in a second language. This is true pretty much anywhere in the US, even in the largest cities such as NYC.

A survey conducted in 2008 by the Center for Applied Linguistics showed that about 25% of US elementary public schools offered world languages, a decrease from 31% a decade earlier. The data shows that, even today, the large majority of schools in the US only offer programs in high school, way too late to generate a pool of graduates at the advanced level (most kids who start taking languages in high school only achieve a Novice-High or Intermediate-Low level, so pretty much they just know how to perform very basic functions such as finding out where the bathroom is). [Click here to learn more about the ACTFL speaking proficiency levels]

For this reason, it’s up to US parents to research what if anything is available in their local schools, locate high quality enrichment or afterschool classes, private tutoring, and other options.

Parents can be excellent language teachers, even if they are monolingual

The reality is that even if you are lucky enough to find a fantastic program with a highly motivated teacher and your young child loves the class, he or she will only learn so much in a 45-minute session once or twice a week. The good news is that parents are ideally situated to reinforce the language learning at home through playful everyday activities if they are shown how to do so.

Once parents understand that they are in the perfect position to teach their kids, they will need to find the right resources to guide them through this process. This is true whether the parents are bilingual or monolingual. It just requires a bit more effort on the part of monolingual parents, as they will really be learning along with their kids.

Of course bilingual parents have the advantage that they can provide an immersive environment for their children, but even short amounts of time on a frequent basis go a long way in language learning.

The tipping point in early language education is possible

I have been working on enabling parents to teach their children (fluent) languages for several years. My goal during the next few months is to take the project a few steps farther and provide stay-at-home moms and other parents interested in teaching languages to their young children the bilingual resources and planning information they’ll need as they move along.

Co-presenters

My co-presenters for the Manhattan panel were:

• Patricia Lo, Director of the Asian Languages Bilingual/ESL Technical Assistance Center for the NYC Department of Education.
• Sharon Huang, of Bilingual Buds, a Chinese immersion program for toddlers and preschoolers in Manhattan and NJ.
• Lora Heller, Founder of Baby Fingers, a sign-language program for young children in Manhattan.

How Preschool Children Learn Languages and How Administrators Can Help Webinar

On March 9^th, I also presented a free webinar sponsored by Early Childhood Investigations. To listen to the webinar recording click here “How Preschool Children Learn Languages”

To read the responses to the participants’ questions, click here: “Q&A for Ana Lomba’s Session on How Preschool Children Learn Languages.”

******

Ana Lomba is changing the way people think about and interact with young children learning languages. Her Parents’ Choice award-winning books, lively songs, games, stories, and mobile applications are quickly becoming favorites with teachers and parents who want to nurture young children’ inborn language abilities. Key to the success of Ana’s break-through method is a focus on the family as the ideal environment for early language learning – even her signature curriculum for language programs is built with parents in mind. Ana has taught toddler, preschool, elementary school, and college-level Spanish courses, and held leadership positions with some of the most influential language organizations in the US, including ACTFL, NNELL and FLENJ. After graduating with a law degree from Spain, her native country, Ana pursued graduate studies at Binghamton University, Princeton University, and NYU.