7 creative tips to improve English speaking skills of your child
The predominant factor in a child’s success with English is their parent’s interest and encouragement, irrespective of the age of their child. So what are you doing at home to help your child improve English speaking? Here are our 7 creative tips for parents to help their child get ahead in English speaking.
1. Go to shopping and have fun
An amazing way to help your children improve English Speaking is by taking them shopping with you. Can’t believe?
Take your kids to mall or that super market and ask them to interact with the sales staff (ask for prices of things, pay at the cash, etc.). If not, walk through the grocery store and name the fruits and vegetables, discuss what to make for dinner, describe the colours and shapes of things present on the shelves, and so on. You can try this technique in clothing store as well. Just have fun with your child in English.
The secret of improving English is more real life conversations and believe me shopping is a great way to do that.
2. Act as if you are a singer
Whether your favourite song or nursery rhymes, singing is a great way to practice English. Pick a new song to learn together every week and sing it before bed or as you walk to school to drop your child or in washroom. Keep singing with your child until you have all the words memorized and can pronounce them correctly.
You can use YouTube and or lyrics website which will let you know what the word is. Karaoke is also a best way to let your child use his senses to sing and learn the lyrics.
3. Ask three questions about their day
Best time for this is before bed or dinner table. Ask open ended questions about the day from your child where a child can think and answer instead of just saying Yes/No. You can decide and plane these questions. Make sure you ask different question everyday instead of same question so that the child does not go in the habit of giving same answer.
If you want your child to improve english speaking then make this routine a daily habit. It will barely take just 10 minutes but the results you will witness will be enormous.
Some sample questions might be – What was the best part of your day? Whom did you help today and how? What happened today that you might do differently next time and how?
4. Get them speak their imagination
You can make up stories with your child. There are various age appropriate ways to do that. With younger kids you can start with a creative sentence (once upon a time a monster wanted a video game) then let your child complete the next sentence (so he decided to go to a mall) and then you switch back and forth until the story takes a funny end.
Older children can make up stories with their imagination with a simple prompt like “Create a magical story of a super car “.
This will not only help them improve their English speaking skills but will also trigger creative cells of their brain.
5. Play with them in English
Children will naturally learn everything around them without any force or external intervention. They do this through play, observation and experimentation and making many mistakes along the way. To help your child learn English speaking skills, play with them in English.
At home, try playing cooking games, dress-up games, hide-and-seek and other popular games, in English. In other words let them learn English the same way they are learning their first language
6. Read aloud and let them make mistakes
If they are just starting their reading journey then you need to take a lead with patience. They will make mistakes but they’ll learn quickly through repetition and end up talking in English over you faster than you would even think. You got to keep patience here.
Reading out loud helps develop pronunciation and will help them learn modulation and tempo of the language. There’s no end to this habit: elder child can read a chapter of a novel aloud to younger siblings.
7. Enjoy Movie saga with Q&A
Watching movies is a great way to have fun but it is also a great way to improve English vocabulary. But to improve English speaking skills watching movies is not enough. You need to add a conversation factor to it with your child. Involving questions in between will serve the purpose.
After the movie, ask meaning of the new words heard by your child in the movie. Look them up in dictionary with your child. Ask them to tell you that which was the most inspiring scene for them, which was the funniest scene according to them and which character they liked the most and why. These fun questions will let your child weave thoughts and then speak up with clarity.
