This is the third in our foreign language learning series. Check out Part 1 and Part 2.
It’s finally here! The post where the rubber meets the road. Here are all of the details about how we do foreign language learning as a family in our home.
Objective: speak language as a family in the home; learn language learning skills; develop language listening and speaking skills at the conversational level.
Tools:
Sticky notes (we like these)
Notebook
Embark language learning app
Chat GPT or similar AI
Beans or plastic pearls
2 jars
We can begin our language learning studies by selecting a home situation. As members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we like to begin with family prayer, as it sets our minds up correctly to begin. It’s also an environment that eases us into speaking. We often use similar phrases each time we pray as a family. Finally, the Embark app already has this vocabulary. For us, it’s an easy way to ease into the language-learning habit of thinking of words we want to learn, as we start with a base of known phrases and track additional words that come up that help us express the things we want to say in the target language. If a family isn’t in the habit of prayer, mealtimes or other routines would be great places to start.
We currently focus on a phrase or two a day that includes three to five new words. I record the phrase on a sticky note, along with the translation, and post the sticky note on the wall. I include about five phrases on each sticky note. After a few weeks, I transfer the sticky notes to our language study book that we use for review once a week.
Embark: The Embark language learning app is an app designed for Latter-day Saint missionaries to learn the language they will be serving in, but it’s not limited to just them. It’s free for anyone who wants to use it. It does require a churchofjesuschrist.org sign in, but this is also open to everyone and can be created on the churchofjesuschrist.org website. If you are not a member, you just indicate that and are not required to enter a member number. The Embark app has a lot of activities. We specifically use it for its excellent audio. The ideal app would have a native language speaker recording each phrase, but then you would be limited to just the phrases recorded. We used other native audio apps and found them limited. They also included mistakes. Embark is a workaround, and we have yet to find mistakes in inflection or pronunciation. After we learn the prayer phrases we wanted that were already included in the app, we add the additional phrases we are learning. We don’t use the words list, even if we are learning individual words, to keep everything in a single unit. After we learn prayer, we create our own list to incorporate the next situation we are learning words about. When I add a new phrase, I number it, as Embark alphabetizes each phrase, and I just like to keep things in the order we learned them in at first. There are practice reviews built into the app that can be used to review phrases, but I just select phrases on my own based on the ones I feel like we’re forgetting. After we’ve fleshed out a situation pretty well, we move on to a new situation and create a new phrase list on our app.
Chat GPT: I was very cautious when I first began using AI. But then I considered how much language is already on the internet and what a gift it is to have something able to access that wealth for me. I have access to all of the norms recorded in my target language, not just things designed specifically for foreign language learners. My query looks something like this: “How would native-German-speaking children, when asking their mother after having finished a meal, say, “May I be excused?” After I give Chat GPT a few queries making it clear the level of casual/formal and family dynamics, all I need to do is put the phrase I want and it gives me all of the context I need. I label this thread with a flag emoji so it’s easy for me to find.
Bean or pearls and jars: In “playing German,” the fun only lasts for so long, so we implement the bean jar technique. Every time a child says a phrase in German, I drop a pearl from the “out” jar to the “in” jar (we use different shaped/sized jars so we don’t mix them up). As children start overusing phrases, I let them know they need to say several phrases like that to get a pearl. I don’t always say something, just hold the pearl up in anticipation, tempting them to say more. This is a way of reverse scaffolding, where we gradually reduce assistance or rewards as the skill becomes more natural. I am extremely generous with the use of pearls. We select a collective reward for when we’ve filled the jar. It’s often ice cream, but sometimes the kids want to do something that needs a larger jar, like a special outing.
Ideal prep needed: Words to learn recorded on the sticky notes and typed into the Embark app.
Daily practice sessions look like this: We take a few minutes reviewing recently learned phrases. If we don’t say the phrase correctly, we don’t correct mistakes, we just listen to the Embark audio again and repeat the phrase. Then we learn the new phrase of the day. I play the Embark audio for the new phrase. We all repeat it a few times. I put a pearl into the in-jar. We act out a scenario where we would use the new phrase, generously doling out pearls for each act of participation. That’s it! We take ten to fifteen minutes. The rest of the day we give pearls each time the target language is used. As we have learned a few languages this way, I continue to give pearls for all of the languages we’ve learned, but prioritize more pearls for the more recent vocabulary.
Friday review: On Fridays, we review all of our recently learned phrases. Then, instead of learning new words, we pull out our language learning book and review old words at random. You could select the first of each phrase of 5 on the sticky one week, then move to the second phrase the next week and so on, but I just pick the word I personally remember the least, as my kids are likely to have a similar recall.
This process is the core of our language learning. This can be built upon in many ways, but this is our minimal daily routine to keep up family language learning in our home. Please email us ways you’ve incorporated language learning in your home. Feel free to contact us if you have any questions on the process. We’d love to talk about it with you!
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