What if parents are not good at the chosen language?

We ought to choose carefully the language or languages we want our children to be proficient in.

An international language such as the English Language is important as the world has become global, especially in the field of trade and commerce. The mother tongue or the language of the place you are residing in is important too as communication in every sphere of life in the ciuntry is essential. Whatever language it is, it is needed to put our children in the foremost path to success. In most cases high proficiency in a particular language determines the future of our children.

Unfortunately, not every parent is proficient in the necessary language. Well, if the language required is English, most probably that parent will not be able to reach this knowledge. However, since the aim of this blog is to help as many parents as possible, I hope those who understand or know this blog can help others to overcome their problems.

Let me tell you a true story about an aunt who helped her grandson learn English.
The parents of this child were very busy with earning a living and this grandma took on the job of caring for her grandchild.

During those days, we had 'Sesame Street' with words taught in an enjoyable way. There were also VCDs for teaching the alphabets with an alphabet song for the child to sing along with. There are so many teaching programmes on discs. On such programmes are big beautiful pictures with somebody pronouncing the names of the things shown.

This grandma would put the child in front of the television with the video player and allow the child to follow the entertaining programme. However, not every programme is good or entertaining. So, grandma got someone good in English to pick the programmes for her.

What are the criteria of a good programme?
1. Such a programme must be entertaining for young children.
2. It must show some kind of suitable activity.
3. There must be some music or appropraite sounds.
4. It has to be colourful.
5. It is good if there are songs for children to follow or sing along with.
6. The language used has to be correct and suitable to the level of the
targeted audience or children.
7. Are the words sufficiently big and clear for a very young child?
8. The pronunciation must be clear and sufficiently loud.

As the child grew, grandma looked for more suitable programmes with more songs, nursery rhymes and cartoon adventures; everyone of them with big subtitles so that the child can follow them. I visited this aunt and found her grandson improving at a tremendous speed.

For parents who are not proficient in the language, there is the kindergarten where teachers help the children with their language learning while there is an opportunity for children to mix and communicate with their peers.

I have seen the excellent language level of a grandson under the care of a grandma who had hardly any proficiently at all accomplishing her task of preparing her grandchild for life in the literate world, just with the aid of a television, a video player, suitable discs, books and the teachers at a kindergarten.

During and after the kindergarten phase, suitable entertaining storybooks were purchased for the child to enjoy and improve.With such aids, children can move one step nearer to success.

(Perhaps, what has been given is not comprehensive enough. Anyone with other means of tackling this problem is invited to put whatever he/she knows his/her comments so that many can benefit from his/her experience. Thank you.)