Babies learn their mother tongues with no fuss. There’s no teacher required, no grammar lessons
and definitely no essay writing! How do they do it? Simply by listening! It’s a fact that children
pick up languages far easily than adults do.
I have often observed that parents are obsessed about their child learning to write ABC, but what
they really want their child to do is “learn English.” In most households in India, English is not
the mother tongue, but in schools we use it as the language of instruction i.e. as the First
Language. Unfortunately, the pattern of instruction is a far cry from what is needed to learn the
language. So, answers are often dictated by the teacher and the child simply learns it by heart to
spill it out on the answer sheet to score marks. Trust me, there’s very little scope for language
learning in this whole process.
Language learning begins with listening. Till you do not have exposure to the language, you will
never learn to speak, read or write, so listening is the key. If you want your children to learn
English, expose them to this language as much as you can. If possible, speak to them in English,
listen to English songs and rhymes, watch English movies and/or cartoons. In short, try to get
them to listen to the language from multiple sources. Children can quickly associate words with
their meanings, so they pick up fast, and because they are listening to grammatically correct
sentences, they will also pick up these speech patterns. Moreover, their vocabulary i.e. “word
bank” will expand rapidly as they hear newer words.
The next skill is speaking. Encourage your child to speak to you or others in English. Even if
they get it wrong, keep at it. If you have more than one child, coax them to converse with each
other in English. Their requests, complaints, needs, quarrels – everything must be in English.
Organize rhyming, storytelling and puppetry sessions. Invite the family as an audience. Every
opportunity to speak increases fluency.
Next in the language learning sequence is reading. Learning to read starts with associating each
letter of the alphabet with a particular sound. For instance, the letter “A” produces the sound that
comes at the beginning of words like “apple”, “ant” “ambulance” etc. English is a complex
language as far as reading goes because there are 26 letters of the alphabet but 44 sounds! That’s
why the knowledge of phonics (sound system) is essential.
Finally comes writing! It is impossible for small children to write ABC straight away. They
must first have sufficient strength in their little finger muscles to grip the pencil. Then they need
sufficient pencil control to guide the strokes accurately because in writing the complete alphabet,
they need to be able to draw straight, slanting and curved lines! That calls for a fair bit of pencil
control.
I will write a separate blog for each of these language learning skills, but suffice to know that at
home you can help your child learn English by ensuring that he or she listens to the language as
speaks as best as he or she possibly can. Reading books together every day too will go a long
way!

Speak away!