Is your kid learning a new language? Cultural immersion is key.
Here are a teacher’s most practical tips.
Please note: We are still fighting a global pandemic and encourage you to virtually explore your community during this time and strictly follow your local authorities’ guidelines about isolating, sanitizing and face coverings.
Does every kid in a minority household inherit the language at a native level? Consider other things part of your cultural heritage: achievements, history, traditions. You can be born Irish on both sides, but if you’re oblivious to St. Patrick’s day… you’re still missing out. It’s immersion with the culture and community that’s crucial to connect with your heritage. Kids in Canada’s minority households get to schooling age and switch to English or French, the languages for formal education. They often lose connection to their heritage culture, never fully learn that language, and struggle with connection to their culture and relatives. Sometimes the children can speak well enough but might not be able to read or write, and often they’re missing the deeper language skills you don’t often think of as language skills.
Is your child’s language learning limited to a formal education setting?
They’re missing out because language isn’t simply academic knowledge. Backing that insight is Siyi Fan, a language teacher and interpreter. She’s fluent in three languages, conversational in three more, and we discussed the topic at length. Language has to be practical in everyday use: you have to know cultural context like slang, you have to be capable of writing with a creative flair, you have to understand jokes, translate non-literal things without sounding robotic. For all that, learning through media isn’t the be-all-end-all. Formal education isn’t either.
Here’s how parents should use cultural immersion to help kids reach native fluency.
It’s all about increasing the number of natural contexts where kids hear and speak the language. Practical experiences that foster a deep connection to the culture. If any of the following are applicable to your culture in the place you live, have fun with these activities and make language a key part of it.
- Cultural food! Restaurants are great, but try gathering the family to make the meal together. Talk about the process and about the good times you remember because of it.
- Dust off your old photo albums and talk about your life before immigrating. Round up some relatives and ask about their lives back home, or about how their lives changed by coming here. Research your family history, there are websites for that!
- What can you say about your culture’s rituals, clothing & decorations? Bring more of them into your home — they make for good object lessons. If you like travelling, plan a road trip to some cultural landmarks.
- Visit nearby cultural centres and ethnic enclaves (eg: Chinatowns). The aim here is to build motivation through a sense of community; language learning is affected by how well the student feels they fit in & how well they feel they’re accepted. And when you can, try a proper trip back to your home country!
To find cultural centres, head to Google or even ask around. Online options abound with language exchange sessions on apps like HelloTalk & Speaky, groups on Zoom & WhatsApp, forums on websites like Reddit or Discord; it’s totally up to you.
- It’s still helpful to watch/read/listen to media from or about your culture, but try to do so together as a family. Keep the entertainment close to your kids’ interests. Make the casual conversation about it — not everything has to be a deliberate lesson.
Aim to build interest, motivation and momentum. Living here can seem like the culturally dominant language is the only one you have to care about. Families immigrate to America and most of them drop their heritage language; within two or three generations, it’s lost in the wind. Learning a heritage language, it goes past academic and career perks. A lot of Siyi’s language students are trying to connect with their parents, and learning their heritage language is the only way to speak to the heart. What you’re raising is a kid with quality connections to their native community, culture, and family.
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Stay tuned for our new podcast because it’ll include the specifics of improving the way your kids pick up languages at home, how advanced language speakers can reach a true native level, and more insights from the world of second language acquisition.
Fran Mbadiwe is an editor who runs SBOC’s Buzz News. Apart from that, he’s probably journaling.
