Hi All

I spoke to my daughter's (6 yrs) teacher in the local school and she has asked me that her German and English skills needs improvement. Nothing too serious, she says but she pointed it out.

It think the problem is that she speaks three different language all with different set of people. She is speaking German in school, English with some friends and TV and our mother tongue at home (Hindi). Probably for the reason she doesn't have clear expressions in any of the language.

Now as the vacations start this weekend, I am thinking of doing some specific activities to improve her English. Ideas I have are cbeebies, 1 hour of Englsih lessons everyday (I plan to give the lessons myself ).

So the help I need is: any more ideas, anyone has any material or any english speaking kids around Grifensee area?

Thanks
Timpy

My kids grew up speaking English, Italien and German and never had any problems its just important that they speak always the same language with the same people if that makes sense(my daughter is now a vet so it cant be so bad)

Children learn best through play and music. I would suggest you show her a few of these youtube videos. They are music I show my kids and present English in a fun way:









There are many more as you will see. Have fun!

Read books to her. Get her to read books. The single best way to improve ones English is through reading.

... and for speech get a bunch of english story CDs. My oldest daughter listened to all sorts of books and stories, spoken by professional actors, and she has a clean accent. The younger one preferred her swiss CDs and has pretty poor grammar and pronunciation.

Thanks a lot for the suggestions.

Tesso, I agree to you a lot. She also speaks three languages but she is not that good in German which is not a problem because the School is giving her extra classes. For English she doesn't have lot of opportunities to practise her English.

Bookworm, thanks a lot. I think it is a great suggestions.

Porsch, I'll do some reading for her. I tried doing that before but didn't keep it up for long. But, she can't read it herself. Thanks for the suggestion.

eejit, can you suggest the CD titles. I think it would be great help.

You can go to the municiple library where they have a special section of kids books. Once your daughter becomes the member of such a library (its free in Lausanne, don't know about Zurich), you can take books for upto 4 to 8 weeks. They also have dvds, cds and cassettes for all ages.

Read this link also, it might help you a bit:

Stages kids go through when learning languages?

Good advice from Bookworm. Our kid is in an English/Czech home environment, and isn't in school yet so has limited exposure to French. We have CD's with children's songs in all three languages, and she's now starting to mimic the French which is quite amazing. She also picks up jingles off the radio which is very very funny .

I'm no linguist but from experience one of the major stepping stones is picking up the rhythm, intonation, and delivery of a language.

We have an Indian friend who was raised in the Swiss German part but has lived in the French part for some time. She speaks Hindi, Swiss German, German, and French, as well as excellent English (with an Indian accent ). She and her Indian husband have young children- next time I see her I'll ask her how they are approaching this.

Mud, I can totally imagine the multilingual kids and how easily they learn different languages. thanks a lot. You are so kind.

Zyxel, we also have a bibliothek, I think I'll check it with them.

Check out the BBC and Naxos children's stories in the audio CDs section of amazon.co.uk. Some examples - the entire Narnia series, Five Children and It, Greek Myths and Legends, The Secret Garden, Rikki Tikki Tavi, etcetera

Dear Timpy,

As an English speaking family (originally from the UK), living in CH for 11 years (just outside Basel, so German speaking), with 4 children (ages 18 - @ college - UNI next year, 16 - year 10 @ school, 9 - year 3 and 7 - year 1). My children have are in the Swiss education system, except my 16 year old, who has received a Rudolf Steiner school education (so German language education).

My own experience is this; in CH schools we have always been criticised for not speaking German at home ... my husband speaks OK German (but far from perfect), my German is 'rubbish', but I do understand Swiss German! The Swiss education system on 'thinks' inside the box! But you do what is best for your child and do not punish yourself when your daughter's teacher makes comments about your child's deficiency in language skills.

My advice:
German - you child should be receiving extra help with German (extra lessons @ school), also what is really helpful is the Logopädisher Dienst (Speech therapy), this really helps with pronunciation - my children all received/receiving this through school, but your pediatrician can also help here.

English - practice is the only way, TV, books - we have always encourage our children to read in both languages (much to the annoyance of the children's school teachers) ... but let them read whatever makes then happy and they enjoy (we have a complete set of Harry Potter books, 50% in English the rest in German and sometimes a book twice, so in both languages).

All my kids speak BOTH languages at home - in fact they swap and change language in one conversation when they speak together (but only English to us, their parents - as we do not speak well-enough German for them).

But take heart, kids are so versatile ... your daughter is very young and she will master both languages, let her learn English at home with joy and play, leaving the education to her school, where she will master German and also have English classes later on.

Finally, my children all speak both languages the older two are fluent and have perfect accents in Swiss German and in English, they also speak perfect High German, but with a slight Swiss accent (so our German friends comment). They also speak very good French. My youngest, well he is learning and doing OK, he has his lessons at school, his speech therapy, his Swiss German friends and us speaking English at home and his English TV and he is Happy (which is most important).

Hi
I am a native English speaking teacher originally from London. I have worked in Zurich for the last 2 years teaching English to children, teenagers and adults. I am now successfully running a Saturday English kids club for children aged 3 plus, children are mainly native German speaking all with one goal - to learn English together. If you are interested I can send you more details.

Regards,
Lynn Booth

hi
visit http://www.britishcouncil.org/kids-print.htm my 5 years old son was also facing same problem but now he is good at it. have patience and trust your child
all the best..

Learning english afresh, I watched a lot the BBC, movies, series, documentaries with the english subtitles. That has helped me quite a lots.

I have also watched a bit some stuff for the kids ( ) and found it was well done for them.