Using English

By using simple English with plenty of repetition, parents help their child to begin thinking in English during activities where they feel secure and can predict what is going to happen, like games or ‘rhyme times’.

Young children want to be able to talk in English about:
• themselves and what they like: ‘I like; I don’t like… yuk’
• what they have done: ‘I went to; I saw…; I ate…’ 
• how they and others feel: ‘I am sad; she’s cross …’

Parents can help by sharing picture books or making their own books using drawings or photographs.

Young children learning their home language become skilled in transferring a little language to many situations: ‘All gone.’ If adults transfer English phrases in the same way, young children soon copy them.

When children need to practise school English, use phrases like ‘What’s your name?’ ‘How old are you?’ ‘What’s this?’ ‘That’s a pencil.’ Parents can turn this into a fun activity by using a toy that speaks only English, asking it the questions and pretending to make it answer.

As young children become more competent speakers, they may include a word in their home language within an English phrase ‘He’s eating a (…)’ because they do not yet know the English word. If the adult repeats the phrase back using only English, the child can pick up the English word. ‘He’s eating a plum.’ ‘A plum.’

When to translate

Young children’s ability to understand should not be underestimated; they understand much more than they can say in English. In their home language young children are used to understanding only some of the words they hear and filling in the rest from the speaker’s body language and clues around them to get meaning. Where parentese is used, they appear to transfer these skills to working out the meaning in English.

When both new concepts and new language are introduced at the same time, it may be necessary to give a quick translation once, using a whisper, followed directly by the English. If translation is given more than once and again in following sessions, a child may get used to waiting for the translation instead of using his or her own clues to understand the English.