It is fascinating observing (experiencing?) my 2.5 year old’s language development. I’m sure it is the most amazing milestone to witness for any parent and I find it particularly fascinating as an English language teacher (does that make me sound like a toothpaste advert from the 1980s?)
I’m not doing any teaching right now but I’m sure I will do it again when the kids are a bit older, and I will have a completely new approach informed by this experience of mothering. For example I would normally have taught students personal determiners and adjectives in the following order –
I, me, my and then
mine. However, Mickey started with
me, then came
me’s which eventually became
mine, and is currently just beginning to use
my and
I. There must be logic in this natural development worth copying for foreign language learners, especially children.
Prepositions (in, up, on etc) are essential elements of the English grammar and something that fox even advanced students. They make up phrasal verbs of which we native speakers use without even thinking but are actually incredibly confusing when you think about them. Consider for a moment many meaning of the following examples – make out, make up, get off, get over. Prepositions are some of the first words off English speaking toddlers and it makes me think that in future courses I will devote more time to them earlier on.
My son has been a bit late in learning to speak so it is great to hear him beginning to express himself. At the moment it is over 99% English but I can tell he understands some Italian and is beginning to want to use it himself. He is suddenly very interested in knowing everyone’s name and asks Italian children ‘what’s chiami?’ a mixture of the English and Italian question. He also says
ciao, grazie, prego and
andiamo but that’s about it so far. It will be strange to hear him speak Italian properly in the future, probably by the time he is five years old he will speak it better than we do!