How to Motivate Children to Want to Learn English

如何引导孩子想去学英语?

Rose Sarr,expert in preschool education?of Xiaohajin

罗斯·萨尔，小哈津幼教专家

　　More and more parents want their children to learn English from a young age. I often meet parents of children as young as two or three who say that proficiency in speaking English will help their children get ahead in a globalized world. In other words, the sooner their children get started, the better.

　　如今越来越多的父母希望他们的孩子从小就学习英语。我经常见到两三岁孩子的父母们在谈论熟练的英语口语将帮助他们的孩子在全球化的世界中拔得头筹。换句话说，孩子越早地开始学习英语，效果就越好。

　　The single most important factor in a child’s success with English is their parents' interest and encouragement, no matter what their children’s age. So what can parents do to support their learning?

　　不管孩子多大，他们成功学习英语最重要的一个因素就是父母的兴趣和鼓励。那么父母应该做些什么来帮助孩子更好的学习英语呢？

Keep yourself motivated

让自己保持积极性

　　To build a positive attitude towards learning, and towards English as a second language, the best place to start is with yourself. If you send your child to an English class, why not join one too? Learning English together is a great way to spend time with your kids and create a positive attitude towards learning and speaking another language.

　　要树立积极的学习态度，把英语作为第二语言，最好从你自己开始，言传身教。如果你送你的孩子去上英语课，为什么不自己也报个英语培训班呢？与孩子一起学习英语是共享亲子时光一个很棒的方法，而且还能持有积极的态度去学习和运用另一种语言。

　　By learning English yourself, you can show your kids that?“having a go”?and making a mistake is better than only speaking when you have the perfect sentence prepared.

　　通过自己学习英语，你可以让你的孩子感受到“勇于尝试”和犯错会比你把事先准备好的、万无一失的句子说出来更有收效。

Play in English

玩转英语

　　Children will naturally learn everything around them without any adult intervention. They do this through playful experimentation and making many mistakes along the way. To help your children get ahead with English learning, get them to play in the language.

　　孩子们会在没有成人干预的情况下自然地习得周围的一切。他们通过有趣的实验，不断的犯错、尝试，而最终达到学习的目的。想让你的孩子在英语学习上取得进步，那就让他们玩转英语吧。

　　Talk in a crazy voice or be daft and make them wonder what you'll be up to next. ?Some parents frown upon the idea of playing the clown and having fun because they think it is time-wasting and that it is not their role to be an entertainer. However if you are a big kid at heart then you will find that joining in, playing with the children and generally acting up and being enthusiastic will come naturally to you and is all part of the fun of?“teaching”. If your children can laugh with you, they'll be interested in what you're doing up there.

　　尝试着用一种夸张或呆萌的声音说话，让他们好奇你接下来要做什么。有些父母不太喜欢扮演成类似小丑的角色和孩子们疯玩，因为他们觉得是在浪费时间，而自己又不是个演员。然而，如果你的内心还保有童真，像个大孩子，和孩子们一起玩耍并全情地投入其中，那么你会发现这些看似平常的胡闹或者充满激情的表演你都可以信手拈来，而这一切都是恰恰就是“教学”的乐趣。如果你的孩子能和你一起开怀大笑，那么就说明他们已经对你所做之事产生兴趣了。

Sing Songs Together

(Or get Youku to help if you can’t sing)

一起唱歌

（如果你不会唱，可以找优酷搭把手）

　　After a few listens to a song or nursery rhyme, children quickly start to hum, sing along to the chorus and eventually put together more and more words. Music and rhyme help children to use full sentences, intonation, pitch, and rhythm, as well as simply building confidence, in a way that we can’t achieve if we were trying to explicitly teach these language features.

　　听了几首歌或童谣后，孩子们很快就会开始试着哼唱，跟着一起合唱，最后拼凑出越来越多的单词。音乐和韵律帮助孩子们使用完整的句子，掌握语调、音调和节奏，也很容易建立自信。如果我们试着明确地去教孩子们这些语言特征，在某种程度上是远远达不到这样的效果的。

　　We can also introduce children to quite difficult language structures through song. For example,?“If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands”. It includes a really complex grammatical structure that a young child would find too challenging to learn from being taught. The song, on the other hand, does everything for us with no pressure, and provides an easily recognizable context for children.

　　我们也可以通过歌曲向孩子们介绍很难的语言结构。举个例子：“如果你知道你很快乐，那就拍拍手吧。”这句话包含了一个非常复杂的语法结构，如果直接这样教给一个小孩，孩子接受起来会极其困难。然而一首歌却轻松地解决了这一切，并且为孩子们提供了一个特别容易接受的语境。

Variety is the Spice of Life

灵活多变是生活的调味剂

　　With that all said, it's also important to change things up within the schedule. For example, if you spend the first 10 or 15 minutes each day doing vocabulary activities, make sure you vary these activities so they don't get boring and stay motivated. If you see your children don't respond to an activity, avoid it in the future and stick to the ones they like.

　　说了这么多，灵活调整日程表中的内容也是很重要的。例如，如果你每天在最开始的10或15分钟进行词汇活动，那么你就要在其中加入一些变量让这项活动变得充满趣味，这样孩子就不会觉得无聊并且能够积极响应。如果你看到你的孩子对某项活动没有反应，那么以后就不要去做了，要坚持他们喜欢的活动。

　　Another way to create variety is to keep changing the pace. Play a game that wakes the children up and follow it with a calm game so that the children do not get too excited. Then play a fast game so the children do not become so calm that they start to become restless and misbehave or drift off.

　　另一种创造多样性的方法是不断地改变节奏。玩一个能激起孩子兴趣的游戏然后接下来换一个安静一些的游戏玩，这样孩子们就不至于兴奋过头。然后再玩一个激烈点的游戏，这样孩子们就不会因为太沉静，而变得坐立不安、搞小动作或走神儿。

Relax

放轻松

　　Don't worry if your child makes mistakes or doesn't start speaking in English immediately. The brain needs to go through a process of decoding and pattern-finding during the language-learning process. Language production usually starts after a long period of listening and thinking.

　　不要担心你的孩子在学习语言中犯错或者还没有马上开口说英语。在语言学习过程中，大脑也需要经历一个解码和模式发现的过程。语言的学习成果，通常是在长时间的倾听和思考之后才形成的。