Teach your own kids English

[varsovian]

As our bilingual (Eng/Pol) kids go to a Polish school, the burden of teaching
them English as a school-style subject has fallen on my untrained shoulders.
I used to be a French teacher, but teaching children their own language
demands a different approach.
Among many other things, I have found the following website extremely useful:
www.primaryresources.co.uk/english/englishA8.htm
Does anyone else teach their own kids academically?

[ianek70]

varsovian napisał:

> Does anyone else teach their own kids academically?

I don't. It would be too weird teaching kids their own language as if it was
foreign.
I've always just spoken English with my daughter and she can communicate in
Scotland without any problems.
She knows the difference between the English she uses with family and the
English they use in the classroom, and she understands BBC English too. I think
this is natural for children - she uses a lot of Silesian words and expressions
at Babcia's that she doesn't use when speaking to strangers.

[varsovian]

Does she do język polski at school? Why is that?

Mind you, it could be difficult for you to organise it - you hardly want to put
your daughter off seeing you.
Teaching your own kids is tough - my wife has had problems teaching ours
French, and we're both experienced French teachers.

[kladia5]

Varsovian I need French teacher . Are you native? if you have tim e, please
write e-mail: [e-mail]

[varsovian]

Nope - English through and through.
Sorry!

[usenetposts]

We use Magic English and DVDs of children's programmes at the earlier stage,
and later on progress to the ladybird books key readers when it comes to
reading and writing. There are a bunch of ad-hoc books on this also in any of
the American Bookstores around Warsaw.

[varsovian]

Mine are a bit beyond that stage now.
Thinking back, the Letterland books were a good way to start with learning the
alphabet in English - but they really are for the teeny-weenies (4 year-olds).

Writing is the problem now - and this very morning my son did one of his
specials ... he'd forgotten to do a review/summary of a book he'd read in
English, so I caught him scribbling away furiously first thing! He sends me
spare sometimes. I had to do some swift corrections - all those repetitions:
also, and, after that, later; and common stylistic errors - a slew of short
sentences without conjunctions.
I'd take him to task tonight if it weren't for his science test which he
refused to learn for last night. The password is definitely staying on the
computer. (Car games, give me strength!)

[usenetposts]

You should work through the classics of Kids Lit. Alice in Wonderland, Swiss
FR, Black Beauty, Swallows and Amazons, Enid Blyton, all that stuff. You read
part to them, and get them to read part to you. That's how many native people
learned English.