Once or twice a week, have your child read their homework, whether it be a monolog, dialog, song lyrics or poem out loud to you.
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Who: You and your language learner
What: Have her speak her current unit’s vocabulary out loud, preferably not in a list, but used as part of a dialog, monolog, song lyrics or poem.
When: As soon as the unit is assigned, as part of memorizing the vocabulary. Then again ahead of a quiz or test on the unit.
Where: At home. Dinner table just before dessert, perhaps?
Why?
- Repetition of a list of vocab words helps learn the words -- but only the words. If possible, it’s far preferable for students to learn new words as part of a song, or a brief monolog/dialog. These new words are strung together in such a way that, by repeating the lyrics often enough, facets of the language's grammar will become second nature to her. Not having to conscientiously puzzle over word order or sentence structure is what makes language learning a breeze!
- By speaking any unfamiliar vocab out loud with you, the embarrassment factor of speaking aloud in class is reduced. You see, she becomes used to hearing the words come out of her mouth. The fear of sounding funny lessens. It “becomes no big thang” at all. Thanks to practicing first in front of people that love her, speaking in class in front of relative strangers (teachers and students) becomes far less intimidating.
