How do you teach your kids to speak proper english?

Reply to How do you teach your kids to speak proper english? on Wed, 23 Mar 2011 10:04:58 GMT

tamarind — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 10:04:58 GMT

csc:
The school environment the child is in plays a big part too as majority of the child's time is spent there.

Just my observation from kids of my peers. Those who are in MGS or SCGS speak well...sometimes with a 'fake' accent in fact. :lol:

They can articulate better. However, speaking well does not translate well into writing well or a distinction in English

I believe that the reason is because a large percentage of kids in MGS or SCGS have parents who are university graduates.

Reply to How do you teach your kids to speak proper english? on Tue, 22 Mar 2011 14:28:27 GMT

daniel.038046lim — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 14:28:27 GMT

Frankly, I think some families just have it better than others.

Picture an example in which the family converses only in English because its elders have always conversed in English, read in English and watched/listened to the English media. Is the father and mother likely to converse with their children in solely in English? Will their children have an easier time learning English? Probably so.

Whatever tuition, enrichment programmes and other English language infusion courses will only get a child not in-tuned with the English language from young a little but further than what his or her ability to speak and write fluently. Consistent after-class exposure to English language literature/media (i.e. books, TV shows, radio programmes etc.) are also very important.

I think the issue is not really about speaking proper English (honestly, I don’t even know what that means given the varieties of the English language). I think the issue is really about speaking and writing fluently in English. Fluency of the language starts young as quite a number of people have agreed. The able parent has to consistently speak in grammatically correct sentences as best as one can.

But herein lies the great difficulty that quite a number of us face: how does one do that consistently if one’s basics are not stellar to begin with? Maybe the family can learn (or re-acquaint, in the case of the parents)) English together - everyone improves, everyone gains confidence in using it fluently.

My experience growing up and learning the English language was helped because of my family environment. But it also helped when I surrounded myself with as much literature/media (i.e. books, TV shows, radio programmes etc.) I could get my hands on. I’m having an open mind with my two daughters by exposing to the different ways of expressing the English language as early as possible (through books, selected children’s TV shows, Internet/computer games etc.) as I think one of the very basics of having self-confidence is being able articulate oneself.

There will always be examinations and tests and all that, but can’t learning be as exploratory and fun for a child as well?

Reply to How do you teach your kids to speak proper english? on Thu, 10 Feb 2011 02:47:47 GMT

csc — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 02:47:47 GMT

The school environment the child is in plays a big part too as majority of the child's time is spent there.

Just my observation from kids of my peers. Those who are in MGS or SCGS speak well...sometimes with a 'fake' accent in fact. :lol:

They can articulate better. However, speaking well does not translate well into writing well or a distinction in English

Reply to How do you teach your kids to speak proper english? on Thu, 10 Feb 2011 02:24:02 GMT

Mamalicious Alicia — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 02:24:02 GMT

Powerpuff Mum wrote:

We also encourage our children to read, expose them to alot reading materials and also educational softwares. We correct them as we speak on a day to day basis. It comes very naturally. We also encourage them to tell stories or describe places , emotions etc which enhance their vocabulary and confidence in public speaking. They write journals about their travels, daily experiences and fictional essays for fun.

Very good idea and stamina mummy, ICHIBAN! yes it has to be a constant effort put together by the parent and child.

Mamalicious Alicia

Reply to How do you teach your kids to speak proper english? on Tue, 08 Feb 2011 11:43:46 GMT

PowerPuff Mum — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 11:43:46 GMT

My children are 12 and 9 years of age now. It is a challenge here to teach children to speak proper English when people generally don’t bother with grammar structure or they mish mash everything in Singlish.

As my husband are not very strong Mandarin speakers, we decided that at the very least we should ensure that our children speak proper English. I agree with all of you about starting young. To speak in complete sentences. Encouraging your child to enunciate the words properly and speak in proper grammatical structure.

We also encourage our children to read, expose them to alot reading materials and also educational softwares. We correct them as we speak on a day to day basis. It comes very naturally. We also encourage them to tell stories or describe places , emotions etc which enhance their vocabulary and confidence in public speaking. They write journals about their travels, daily experiences and fictional essays for fun.

Today we are reaping the rewards of our efforts, both of them are very eloquent speakers and are very competent in their command of the English language. They are adaptable in that they can switch mode from Singlish to proper English when situation calls for it. Most importantly, they know what proper English really means and are able to use it accordingly.

Reply to How do you teach your kids to speak proper english? on Tue, 08 Feb 2011 03:57:01 GMT

Mamalicious Alicia — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 03:57:01 GMT

Hi,

Reading is a good way to improve your child's language skills. As a child is reading, their mind are forming sentences which will lead to speaking proper English. Hence it is important to buy good books (not singlish comics)

Personally i think the environment plays a vital role. If you want to master a foreign language, you go to that country and stay with natives. i.e learn japanese, stay at japan for a few months. Not only will you pick up faster, you will soon self-correct as the people around you don't understand what you are saying.

It is difficult to speak proper English here as Singlish is so common here and we use it to tone down and appear more friendly to others. The media also uses it to speak to us in order to bring our guard down.

So its hard when our children's friends in school speak singlish and somehow influence them. It has to be a constant self-teaching, self-correcting and self-improving journey for our little ones. For now, here's a link which i find useful and interesting.
http://www.britishcouncil.org/parents-help-speaking-english-at-home.htm

Reply to How do you teach your kids to speak proper english? on Tue, 25 Jan 2011 08:54:10 GMT

buds — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 08:54:10 GMT

ZacK:
My wife and I are very conscious about speaking properly to our kids... I find that with my friends, I let out more ahs and lahs etc... but with my boys I tend to be more conscious...

I know watcha mean, bro! :hi5:

With our mates, we so call... let loose those aaahs, aye? :lol:

ZacK:
To the extent that sometimes DS1 speaks with an accent to make his point :roll:

When i used to get people asking how my children could speak like that
ie. accented... i just reply... it's not an accent... it's just proper English.

Reminds me of a joke from this stand-up comedian who said, \"No, it's not
an accent. I do not speak with an English accent. This is how people in
England speak English!\" :rotflmao:

ZacK:
We know for a fact that it helped that we started reading regularly to our elder boy when he was very young. We do not push him now other than to do the necessary school related work... When he has idle time, he either reads his own books or doodles on the magnetic board.

Yaah.. better read something they like better than read nothing, aye bro?

Reply to How do you teach your kids to speak proper english? on Tue, 25 Jan 2011 08:49:45 GMT

buds — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 08:49:45 GMT

cherrygal:
To have your kids speak proper English, you would need to speak proper English to them from a young age. At the stage when they are still grappling with grammar in nursery or kindy, you have to say what they are trying to say in the proper way. Try to cut the baby talk.

Kid: Open door
You: You want me to open the door?
Kid: On lights
You: Switch on the lights

There is no need to reprimand or say \"no, incorrect\" to the kid. Just reinforce what's correct by saying it after them. They will soon get it.

My son does very well in his grammar as he has constantly listened to us speak. He usually chooses the correct answer even if not taught.

:hi5: Sounds like me.. :please:

There is also no need to make emphasis what they're saying is wrong..
and then get them to repeat after you kinda thing... unconsciously when
i just rephrase, \"I'm sorry, can you say that again...?\" They will automaticly
rephrase their sentence or question. :lol: They'll begin with... errr...
\"I'm sorry, i meant....\"

I agree! No baby talk puhleezz! :dowan:

Reply to How do you teach your kids to speak proper english? on Tue, 25 Jan 2011 08:27:13 GMT

tanthiamsoon.010292hotmail.010292com — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 08:27:13 GMT

cherrygal:
To have your kids speak proper English, you would need to speak proper English to them from a young age. At the stage when they are still grappling with grammar in nursery or kindy, you have to say what they are trying to say in the proper way. Try to cut the baby talk.

Kid: Open door
You: You want me to open the door?
Kid: On lights
You: Switch on the lights

There is no need to reprimand or say \"no, incorrect\" to the kid. Just reinforce what's correct by saying it after them. They will soon get it.

My son does very well in his grammar as he has constantly listened to us speak. He usually chooses the correct answer even if not taught.

Definitely. Always correct them by asking them to re-phase again if your kids are not speaking proper english.

Reply to How do you teach your kids to speak proper english? on Mon, 15 Nov 2010 07:00:55 GMT

UncleLim — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 07:00:55 GMT

cherrygal:
To have your kids speak proper English, you would need to speak proper English to them from a young age. At the stage when they are still grappling with grammar in nursery or kindy, you have to say what they are trying to say in the proper way. Try to cut the baby talk.

Kid: Open door
You: You want me to open the door?
Kid: On lights
You: Switch on the lights

There is no need to reprimand or say \"no, incorrect\" to the kid. Just reinforce what's correct by saying it after them. They will soon get it.

My son does very well in his grammar as he has constantly listened to us speak. He usually chooses the correct answer even if not taught.

There is almost no way of stopping children speaking in broken English since most of us parents do it ourselves. As cherrygal suggested, the first people we need to correct are ourselves. The kids will follow suit.

I correct them (when I remember to) by asking:

\"What did you just say?\"

\"Will you rephrase that in proper English please?\"

It is often very tough even after thinking to say it the right way because we have been speaking English using Chinese sentence structures.

Reply to How do you teach your kids to speak proper english? on Thu, 23 Sep 2010 03:51:59 GMT

duriz — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 03:51:59 GMT

cherrygal:
To have your kids speak proper English, you would need to speak proper English to them from a young age. At the stage when they are still grappling with grammar in nursery or kindy, you have to say what they are trying to say in the proper way. Try to cut the baby talk.

Kid: Open door
You: You want me to open the door?
Kid: On lights
You: Switch on the lights

There is no need to reprimand or say \"no, incorrect\" to the kid. Just reinforce what's correct by saying it after them. They will soon get it.

My son does very well in his grammar as he has constantly listened to us speak. He usually chooses the correct answer even if not taught.

:goodpost:

Reply to How do you teach your kids to speak proper english? on Thu, 23 Sep 2010 03:47:02 GMT

cherrygal — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 03:47:02 GMT

To have your kids speak proper English, you would need to speak proper English to them from a young age. At the stage when they are still grappling with grammar in nursery or kindy, you have to say what they are trying to say in the proper way. Try to cut the baby talk.

Kid: Open door
You: You want me to open the door?
Kid: On lights
You: Switch on the lights

There is no need to reprimand or say "no, incorrect" to the kid. Just reinforce what’s correct by saying it after them. They will soon get it.

My son does very well in his grammar as he has constantly listened to us speak. He usually chooses the correct answer even if not taught.

Reply to How do you teach your kids to speak proper english? on Wed, 22 Sep 2010 05:04:16 GMT

littlewoman — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 05:04:16 GMT

Ykiasu:
Sad to say but my DS's spoken Eng gets bad everytime he returns to school after the long holiday breaks.

All my effort down the drain

I think our kids r just too busy n stressed that they do not have the energy, time and mood to put in extra effort to speak properly.

Worse still, he comes back saying that classmates get punished even if they whisper in class, how will our next generation ever learn to communicate. They r just trained to churn out exam papers after exam papers :?:

That's true! And I find it very hard to correct the bad English as my kids will say that is how their friends speak. I also do not want to send my child to the more \"English-speaking\" schools like MGS or ACS as their Chinese is also bad so I want them to go to the more chinese kind-Ai tong to work on their chinese, but then they come back with English like that. Esp my older one, younger one still in preschool so seems to be not as bad.

I heard of friends sending their kids to Julia Gabriel to correct this, don't know if it will help and they are quite ex!!

Reply to How do you teach your kids to speak proper english? on Mon, 20 Sep 2010 00:56:58 GMT

Ykiasu — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 00:56:58 GMT

Sad to say but my DS's spoken Eng gets bad everytime he returns to school after the long holiday breaks.

All my effort down the drain

I think our kids r just too busy n stressed that they do not have the energy, time and mood to put in extra effort to speak properly.

Worse still, he comes back saying that classmates get punished even if they whisper in class, how will our next generation ever learn to communicate. They r just trained to churn out exam papers after exam papers :?:

Reply to How do you teach your kids to speak proper english? on Thu, 16 Sep 2010 15:56:16 GMT

ZacK — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 15:56:16 GMT

67283:
As a 17 year old who speaks proper English, I think the best way for children to learn to speak proper English is by speaking proper English to them and encourage them to read more books (which you are doing).

My parents always spoke proper English to me and the first time I learnt about Singlish was when I entered primary school. Back then, when I spoke a word of Singlish, my parents immediately corrected me and explained why that was incorrect. Till this day they still do so (but less often!).

My parents encouraged reading from an early age and my brother and I became voracious readers.

Another factor that I attribute my speaking of proper English is that I tend to hang around people who speak proper English. In fact, one of my best friends has been called a grammar Nazi by many!

Although some may recommend that children learn the elements of a sentence, such as verbs and adjectives, I think that when proper English is spoken and reinforced, it will develop.

I agree with what you are saying... My wife and I are very conscious about speaking properly to our kids... I find that with my friends, I let out more ahs and lahs etc... but with my boys I tend to be more conscious... To the extent that sometimes DS1 speaks with an accent to make his point :roll:

We know for a fact that it helped that we started reading regularly to our elder boy when he was very young. We do not push him now other than to do the necessary school related work... When he has idle time, he either reads his own books or doodles on the magnetic board.

Reply to How do you teach your kids to speak proper english? on Thu, 16 Sep 2010 13:26:39 GMT

67283 — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 13:26:39 GMT

As a 17 year old who speaks proper English, I think the best way for children to learn to speak proper English is by speaking proper English to them and encourage them to read more books (which you are doing).

My parents always spoke proper English to me and the first time I learnt about Singlish was when I entered primary school. Back then, when I spoke a word of Singlish, my parents immediately corrected me and explained why that was incorrect. Till this day they still do so (but less often!).

My parents encouraged reading from an early age and my brother and I became voracious readers.

Another factor that I attribute my speaking of proper English is that I tend to hang around people who speak proper English. In fact, one of my best friends has been called a grammar Nazi by many!

Although some may recommend that children learn the elements of a sentence, such as verbs and adjectives, I think that when proper English is spoken and reinforced, it will develop.

Reply to How do you teach your kids to speak proper english? on Wed, 15 Sep 2010 08:06:57 GMT

briskcross — Wed, 15 Sep 2010 08:06:57 GMT

I believe in Lorna Whiston because I went there myself when I was a kid (my family spoke Chinese) and my English improved drastically. Now my son is attending. I like it that they have a progressive reading programme so I know my son is reading books (2 books a week) suitable for his level, then they move up gradually.

However, a friend shared that her daughter brought back Singlish, picked up from her classmates there, so she withdrew after a few months. So I really don’t know…

Reply to How do you teach your kids to speak proper english? on Thu, 09 Sep 2010 14:31:45 GMT

magic mushroom — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 14:31:45 GMT

we're in the same predicament. 'cept that my daughter speaks, reads, write, breathes english and absolutely hates chinese!

:?: