Teaching our homeschoolers another language could be a challenging task. In my case, I have the assignment of teaching a 6 year old Spanish speaking boy to learn conversational English.

If your interest is exclusively conversational language, say goodbye to explaining grammar or writing words in English. When it’s time to speak….all you have to do is: talk. Do not allow your homeschooler to speak his native language until class is over. If he/she wants to say something in his/her native language, help him/her translate and let him/her say it in English.

Be persistent because if you let him/her talk in Spanish; they will want to do it over and over again.

They have to lose the freight to speak so it’s very important that you listen and help them pronounce correctly.

Never make fun of anything that they say. That will further traumatize them and they will never want to speak the language again.

Give them lots of oral reports.

Use dialogues and roleplays.

Use show and tells.

Use “Follow instructions” exercises. And the best of all….

Use music. Songs and poems will help the pronunciation and the memorization. Besides, it will make their experience more fun.

Happy language learning!