As I was sitting down flipping the pages of my bilingual reference book, I came across an interesting idea about bilingual activity. An activity outside home, inside a restaurant. Yes, a restaurant!
Instead of having to spend lots of money to go and travel to the country that speaks in the minority language that we teach our kids (in my case, it's Arabic and English- but English is not really a minority language in Malaysia I guess), why not we try to bring our kids to the ethnic restaurant. I believe we have lots of restaurant run by different ethnics. Japanese, Korean, Arabic, Indian, Western and more. However I am not sure whether the workers there are the native speakers of the 'meals' served. But I have found a lot Arabic cuisines restaurants which are truly Arabic! The waiters, the owners, and the customers are real Arab people, and even the menus are in Arabic.
This is definitely a cool idea for bilingual family with Arabic as a target language. Our kids will definitely feel awesome with the small-yet-original piece of the real country. Believe me, kids will feel good when they see that there are more people outside the family that use the minority language. We can let our kids to check on the menus and order them in the minority language, let them call the waiters, ask this and that about the menus & order whatever food they want; in the target language. Both you and your kids will definitely get the sensation of euphoria upon having this kind of chance.
Besides restaurant, any ethnic shop outlets or stores is a good place too to bring your kids. Though the name of every item might not be displayed, you can still teach your kids about their names while shopping. InshaAllah this kind of activity can make your child happy about being bilingual and always in the mood for learning more and more about the target language.
A piece of Middle East in Malaysia.
A piece of Japan in Malaysia.
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