Category: Speaking

How to read wordless books

1/11/2022

By Ana Elisa Miranda, Ute Limacher-Riebold and Yoshito Darmon-Shimamori

We love wordless books for their flexibility and the possibility of being read in any language, by readers of all ages.

Reading is much more than decoding words - it is creating meaning, making connections with what you already know, learning something new, predicting what is going to happen, reading between the lines, forming an opinion, asking and answering questions, sharing your reading with others, and much more.

When we read wordless books with our children, that is an active moment when all those comprehension processes can happen, when we can feel free to interpret the illustrations the way we want.

We can also feel free to give life to the story our own way: expressing emotions with our voices, faces or bodies.

Our children can start reading wordless picture books very early on and narrate the story in their very own way: skipping parts or highlighting others. Wordless picture books are not only interesting for children who don’t read text yet, or who are not skilled readers yet, they can be very interesting for older children and adults too!

Watch the video to find out how to read wordless books with:

Toddlers and Preschoolers
Primary School Children
Teenagers

Resources:
List of Wordless Picture Books
How to Read Wordless Picture Books (Parent Tips)
The Power of Wordless Picture Books

Find more ideas to foster all your languages in our books:
The Toolbox for Multilingual Families
The Parents' Guide to Raising Multi-literate Children

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How singing boosts speaking skills

26/9/2022

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By Ana Elisa Miranda, Ute Limacher-Riebold and Yoshito Darmon-Shimamori

This month's video is about three things that work so well together: singing, language learning and children.

Singing and experiencing music - in any language - is not only fun, but has the power of making people feel understood and like they belong.
It has no age boundaries! Everyone, from a newborn to great-grandparents can enjoy its benefits.

Songs are often relatable to our lives.
We can sing/listen alone or in a group.
Songs elicit emotions and help us create stronger connections in our memory.
Singing helps us improve pronunciation and vocabulary.
We can dance, make gestures, get really playful with songs.
Songs add motivation to language learning.

Throughout the video we share:

How toddlers and preschoolers can benefit from singing in the daycare or school language (when that's a different one than spoken at home).
What we can do to support our toddlers and preschoolers.
How songs help primary-aged children learn school subjects.
How to enjoy songs with our primary school children and show them that we care about their interests.
Different ways to explore songs with our teens.

Watch the video and let us know in the comments: How has listening to music and singing supported your family languages?

Resources mentioned and more:
Struggling to learn a language? 6 tips on how pop songs can help
How to learn language through songs
Lyrics Training
Lyric Fluent (get a 30-day free trial with this link or the code A4MF)
Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes in many languages

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Find fresh ideas for your multilingual family on our books:

The Toolbox for Multilingual Families
The Parents' Guide to Raising Multi-literate Children

Have fun with your languages!

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No-prep activities for multilingual children

19/8/2022

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By Ana Elisa Miranda, Ute Limacher-Riebold and Yoshito Darmon-Shimamori

Whether we are traveling or staying home during school holidays, both are great opportunities to learn something new and to connect with our children.
However, when we are on vacation, we might want to keep things as simple and relaxed as possible.
This Summer, we created a series of videos where we shared the easiest ways to engage our children with our home languages.

In this video I share 3 no-prep activities that support reading skills for toddlers, primary school kids and teenagers. Reading in the home language doesn’t really require a lot of preparation. We hope these activities inspire you!

It might take a while for our children to switch to using our home language more often when daycares and schools (in the other language) are out, but there are many ways to support them in becoming more confident in our home languages.

In this video, Ute shares a few activities that foster speaking skills for toddlers, primary school children and teenagers that do not require any preparation.

Regular practice of reading and writing in the home language is crucial for our children to improve their literacy skills.
Check out Yoshito’s ideas of no-prep writing activities we can do anytime, anywhere:

We also met live and talked about How to make the most of holidays in our home country. The three of us were fortunate enough to be able to visit family in “our countries” or countries where one of our languages are spoken. Watch the recording and see ideas and strategies for all ages!

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Have fun with your languages and find hundreds of activity ideas for your multilingual family on our books:

The Toolbox for Multilingual Families
The Parents’ Guide to Raising Multi-literate Children

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Charades and Gestures in Multilingual Families

25/5/2022

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By Ana Elisa Miranda, Ute Limacher-Riebold and Yoshito Darmon-Shimamori

Gestures and body language are important aspects of communication. Not only for our youngest ones, but also for when we learn a new language and don't know the words yet.

In this video we talk about:

How to play Charades
How to keep the game fun and enjoyable for all players
How the game can help consolidate knowledge of the home language
How to play it using different languages
The importance of gestures for language acquisition and learning
Communication when children are not verbal yet
Gestures across languages and cultures

Watch the video and let us know in the comments:
How do you use gestures and sounds in your family?
Do your children like to play Charades?

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Resources:

Find hundreds of activity ideas for your multilingual family on our books:

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How to help our children with pronunciation in a playful way

3/3/2022

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A Tongue Twister is a sentence that has repeated sounds, which make it difficult to say without stumbling.

Tongue twisters are good for improving pronunciation and speaking skills. They are like physical exercises, as we strengthen and stretch the muscles involved in speech when we try to articulate them. This muscle exercise leads to a clearer pronunciation, to clearer speech patterns and helps to rectify sounds that could be hard for us to articulate.

Tongue twisters challenge our capacity to enunciate the individual sounds in each word so we don't trip up, they force us to pay careful attention to the precise sounds in each word.

They are not only a good exercise for beginners in the target language, but also for those whose articulation is affected, for example by retainers or tooth gaps.
Tongue Twisters are also a great warm up for actors, singers and public speakers!
When playing with Tongue Twisters, the aim is to enunciate the sentence as quickly as possible without making mistakes.

The fun part is that it is a tricky exercise for everyone! Even proficient speakers! So it can help children be less afraid of making mistakes and just give it a go.

Do you play tongue twisters with your children?
Which tongue twisters do you remember from your childhood?
What tongue twisters do you know in your other languages?

In this video we share some easy and fun ways to use tongue twisters with your children in all their languages.

You can find tongue twisters in over 100 languages here:
https://www.tongue-twister.net

Have fun with your languages!