You are your child's first language teacher.

One of the first voice your new born child hears is either yours, your gynaecologist's or a nurse's.

Whoever it may be, the parents are the child's first teacher. What kind of talk are you going to use with the child? Is it going to be baby talk or adult language? Is it going to be 'Ooo..Ahh....' and 'momm...mom..' or is it 'Hello, baby.' and 'Here's your milk.'

Why do we need to teach our child something which will be out-dated by the time he can talk? We should not waste precious time but go straight to good everyday words of whatever language we may want our child to learn.

That was what My wife and I did with our children and they learned to talk and increased their vocabulary very fast.

Parents should talk to their children from the first day they were born. The words our children hear at the age of one day may not come into use for many months to come but what they hear will be stored in their brain. As I had mentioned in an earlier post, researches have found that the foetus could hear and react to sounds even though it is still in the womb.So parents should talk in ordinary everyday language to their as yet unable to speak child so that they are familiar with the sounds of the language when they are ready to speak.

Another method to introduce language to our children, and that was what my wife and I did,is to read simple stories to our children. With this method, I found that my children started enjoying stories at a very young age and there was no necessity to encourage them to be interested as they already were.

After four or five months,at the time when the child is starting to crawl, books with plenty of big pictures and words naming the pictures should be introduced. Parents could teach the children how to 'mouth' the words. By 'mouthing' the words, parents show their child how the words are pronounced. The picture give meaning to the word. To do this, once the child is familiar with the words, point at the picture as the word is pronounced.

Once your child is able to talk which is somewhere between eight months to a year, talk to him/her as often as possible. After this, besides story books, the world is your child's classroom and the resources depend upon the environment and space available to you.

The world is full of audio visual aids and they are yours to use depending upon your willingness to avail such aids to your child. Take your child to the zoo and teach him/her the names of all the animals there together with their sounds and movements. This lesson continues when you return home.Daddy becomes the tiger and roars with claws stretched out to scratch him/her. Just a visit to the zoo and the child learns what a tiger is, how a tger moves, has stripes and a tail, with claws, sharp claws to scratch a little boy/girl. See the amount of vocabulary learned with just one animal at the zoo! And there all so many other animals. Repetition is important. Unlike adults who may find it boring, children find repetition useful for enhancing memory. Who is the teacher who has done this much for your child? You, the first teacher is your child's life.

What about those parents who wishes to teach their children a language in which they are not good at? Well, there is always a way if there is a will. An aunt of mine is not good at English or Mandarin but she taught her grandson both the languages. We shall go into that in a later post.