The family has just returned from a vacation to New Orleans, which was followed by a cruise to Mexico. It was great, thanks for asking. It's tempting to assume that time in Mexico would have greatly improved Leilani's Spanish, but we were only in port for about 9 hours total and between helpful locals speaking English and Crystina's fluent Spanish we didn't really get to use much of our Language Stars repertoire. Now that we're back Leilani will be moving up to the 3-5 year old class, as I may have mentioned earlier. This is bittersweet for me because while she's clearly ahead of the curve (thanks to her mother being a native speaker) and moving up early, on the other hand I won't be able to attend class with her anymore. She'll probably be more than a bit sad to lose her teacher Carlos as well, and in fact was a little less participatory this week when Carlos was out sick and we had a substitute. In an effort to keep up with my daughter, I think I'm going to head to a Starbucks nearby and listen to some Spanish language CDs I bought years ago when I first started dating my lovely wife.
Since we're concluding the parents and tots program, I had a few tips for those of you that may be starting the parents and tots for a good classroom experience:
Speak When Spoken To Many of the children are reluctant to speak when the teacher asks them too. If you speak the phrases as well your child will hear you saying the word, which is the primary way they learn language, as well as see that it's not embarrassing to speak up.
Sing...Sing a Song I know you feel silly when jogging in a circle and singing "choo choo choo el tren se va" but your child looks up to you. If you sing, they sing. Besides everybody else is doing it.
Simple Reminders Occasionally Leilani will stop singing the songs or repeating. Typically a gentle reminder will get her participating again.
No Ingles en la Clase Leilani is quite used to speaking English when speaking to me, and Spanish for her mother. So we set a rule - no English when in class. If she speaks to me in English I don't respond except to tell her no English. This took a few classes to stick but now she only speaks to me in Spanish.
Go Easy on the Snack It's not uncommon for the teacher to come around during snack time to ask a question, only to find one of the kids has a mouth full of goldfish. Signs around the room point out that snack time is not a time to get a meal, but a reward for learning. So reward your kid with a few of the snacks at a time while quizzing them on the lesson for that day. Often times the teacher will provide a plate that has pictures from that day's lesson.
I'm no expert, but I think if you follow a few of the tips above you and your child will have more productive and fun class session. Until next time.
