I am looking for regular play dates specifically for language learning purposes for my daughters, 2 and 5 year old.
The idea is for the kids to be dropped off at a family which speaks the language they want to learn.
So they can be immersed in the envioronment of that language and learning that language will only become natual behavior for kids. We are native Chinese speakers and can offer a chinese immersion envioroment. We are looking for other native speakers, Spanish, Japanese, or Korean, we are open to options. We will take turns to drop off kids at the other family. (We can start off with mummies accompany first till kids get acquaninted with each other)
The idea might be quite new to most. Let me explain how I came up with it:
I was also a governess for an american celebrity investor's 5 year old daughter. He hired a Chinese nanny since the kid was 1 year old and she grew up in a bilingual envioronment, speaking both language fluently. She had no chinese class at all. She is now in primary and her Chinese level is better than most local Chinese kids. I also tutored other kids including chinese kids who grew up in english speaking families. How this american kid learned her Chinese almost effortlessly coz the envioronment is created for her, VS how hard those chinese kids "learn" Chinese (language classes, home tutors, play groups) and achieve little progress, really impressed me, making me realise how important enviornment is for language learning, esp. for kids.
Learning this lesson, I asked my indonesian helper to speak bahasa indonesia to my daughters and they are both fluent in indonesian now. I picked a lot of indonesian from their conversations too, quite effortlessly. Having achieved this, I am very confident the idea of putting kids in a language envioronment rather than classes and playgroups, will work better for them to learn a language.
I now wish for them to learn another language, any interested mummies, pls email at [email protected]. I'd be happy to discuss more or just kick start to try a few sessions. We are okay if you want to stop in between too. Hope I can find like-minded mummies here.
vivian