If you want your child to keep on speaking a ...

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If you want your child to keep on speaking a foreign language, never correct their language mistakes. This will eventually take away the joy of speaking in that language and they will choose to stop speaking that language (although they understand the language very well). They can learn grammer and "correct" ways to speak much much later. While they are still young, they need to build confidence in that language through acceptance from you (not from anyone else.) For most international children in Australia, English would be their first language eventually. So they might end up answering you only in English despite of you speaking to them in another language. When that happens, we just need to accept it and never force them to speak the other language. Keep talking to them in the language you choose (because it's very likely they still understand that language). If they have been accepted for who they are, they will accept you for who you are too. They will still keep on learning that language from listening to you. 言語の間違いは訂正しません。 子供は間違っていた、直された、と感じることでだんだんと話すのが楽しく感じれなくなってしまう恐れがあり、最終的には、例えば「もう日本語で話しかけないで!」となったり、日本語で話しかけても英語でしかかえってこなくなります。 間違っていても、そのまま受け止めてくれる、という安心感を感じてもらうことが大事。文法だの正しい言い方なんかはもっと大きくなってからでも遅過ぎませんが、一度失った自信はもうなかなか取り戻せないものです。また、日本語で話しかけて英語でしか戻ってこなく、「日本語で話してよ」と子供に言うのもNGです。ありのままを受け止めてあげる、がポイントですね。 まだ息子には言われたことはないですが、もし将来「英語で話してよ」と言われたら、それは丁寧に断ると思います。「あなただけとお話する時は自分が好きな言語で話したいの。ありのままのママを受け止めて下さい」と。ありのままを受け止めてもらった子供は親のありのままも受け止められるようになると信じています。

A post shared by Noriko Amies (@noriamies) on Jul 1, 2019 at 5:20pm PDT