Frequently Asked Questions:
- How can I help my child at home?
- What if my child is new to the school?
How can I help my child at home?
Learning a second language is a life-long process, and there are
so many fun ways to practice. You can help your child by:
1. Providing opportunities to hear Spanish:
Music CDs can be a wonderful opportunity for children to continue
to hear Spanish at home or in the car. See the "links" pages for
some suggestions for younger kids, and if you e-mail me I can
also recommend pop and rock music for older kids. The public
library has a weekly Spanish storytime, as well as music and
books on tape that you can check out. There are also
some fun online games or software for children to practice.
2. Providing opportunities to speak Spanish:
Ask them what words they have learned in Spanish and you may get
an earful! From the very beginning, I'll be teaching the children
useful phrases, so they might have fun practicing saying "hola"
and "gracias" at the local Mexican restaurant. Sometimes a
relative, babysitter or friend who speaks Spanish can have fun
playing a game like bingo, dominoes or Candyland in Spanish to
practice numbers or colors.
3. Being patient and realistic:
A child should not be expected to be completely bilingual unless
they have spent a considerable amount of time in a Spanish-
speaking home or country. Children will slowly build their
vocabulary to achieve fluency as they get older. They will learn
the sounds of the language when their brain is best able to
absorb them. Above all, I hope they will learn that learning
another language is fun!
What if my child is new to the school?
There may be a period of adjustment in the beginning of the
semester for new students who have not taken Spanish before, but
I will do everything possible as a teacher to make them feel
welcome. One of the main things that may take some getting used
to is that I speak mostly Spanish, with very few "time outs" or
explanations in English. This immersion approach has
proven to be the most effective way for children and adults to
learn a second language. (And it's even how we learned our first
language!) In the beginning of the semester, I will frequently
remind the kids, "Don't worry if you don't understand everything
I'm saying." I will give them lots of visual and verbal clues to
let them know what we're talking about. So if your child comes
home saying "I don't understand what the Spanish teacher is
saying" tell them no one quite does! But the more Spanish you
hear and speak, the more you will eventually understand. If they
get the basic idea (Is this story about colors and trains?) then
they're doing great!
I approach each day with your child with an eye to #1 having fun
with learning the language, and #2 hearing and speaking as much
Spanish as possible. Part of having fun is for all students to
feel confident about their learning, so I structure each class
with a certain routine and format that helps with that. We start
each class with a short explanation in English of what we are
covering. We then go through a introduction that follows a
familiar routine, such as singing an "hola song" with the younger
kids or looking at the calendar with older kids. Whenever we are
going over vocabulary from before, there is always a review of
those words. Whether it's new vocabulary or old, we always
practice it in different ways- by playing a game, reading a
story, singing a song, doing a stretch, looking at words. So
even without prior knowledge of Spanish, your child should
quickly start to feel comfortable.
If it is something that both you and your child enjoy, you could
do some things to learn some of the basic vocabulary that will
come up often during the year. One of my favorites is music, and
you can read question #1 above for more ideas. As a starting
point, Suzy Dorn's CD "Cantemos en español" is a great one to
cover numbers, colors, alphabet and parts of the body.
Do not hesistate to call me, e-mail or schedule a meeting if at
any point you want to go over how your child is doing. I hope
that Spanish class will be something that they look forward to
every week!
Señora Olea