Speaking Games: Making language fun
Inspiring a young person isn’t always an easy process. Unless the thing they are dealing with is outstanding or overwhelming, they are unlikely to find themselves getting excited by it, and will let it drift by without notice. When it comes to something essential, like English, this can be hard to deal with as a parent. To help you out with this, this post will be exploring some of the ways that you can work towards making this part of their life and education more interesting. With this in mind, you should be able to start applying similar logic to other parts of the schooling.
Origins
Sometimes, one of the most interesting features of a word or phrase is the origins behind it. By looking into this and sharing it with your child, you can give them a new appreciation for the world of words. Posts like 10 Bizarre English Sayings and What They Mean can be perfect for this, giving you something fun and light to start off with, without having to go out of your way to find it. There are entire sites out there which are dedicated to this kind of content.
Music
There are a lot of very gifted children out there, and music is a talent a lot of them share. While you can’t work language into the playing of the music, enabling your child write their own lyrics could make this a lot more fun for them. As long as they are working to expand their vocabulary, this sort of work should be perfect for them, and it won’t be very hard to get them started. Of course, though, they might need some help for the first few pieces.
Games
If you’re not sure about taking such a direct approach with your children and would rather leave the teaching to the pros, using language-based video games can be another way to make English more fun for your children. Resources from companies like FluentU are aimed at kids and people who find learning through games to be very helpful can also be used to help in a wide range of subjects.
Stories
Finally, as the last option to consider, reading is a very big part of English, especially during school. A lot of children find it hard to get engaged with reading unless they find a series they really like, though. To find something they love, you will have to do some research, using your knowledge of the movies they like the most to understand what their book preference might be. This could take some trial and error, but this will be worth it once they are reading all the time.
Hopefully, this post will inspire you to start working harder on the time you put into your child’s language learning. Fostering this sort of approach to work is a great way to make them feel better about it, helping them to always complete homework and avoid slacking when they need to work hard. You will, of course, still have to work hard to achieve it.
*Collaborative post