Bagaimana Mengajar Anak Bahasa Yang Belum Kita Kuasai

Bismillah.

Alhamdulillah akhirnya berkesempatan juga untuk menulis entri ini. Saya akan cuba tulis seringkas yang mungkin. Ini antara cadangan cara-cara untuk mengajar anak kita bahasa asing yang kita sendiri belum kuasai.

1) BELAJAR BAHASA ITU
Tak perlu tunggu kita fasih baru mula ajar anak. Cuma belajar basic bahasa tersebut. Setakat yang diperlukan untuk bercakap dengan anak. Kemudian perlahan-perlahan kita menambahbaik kefahaman kita dalam bahasa tersebut. Sama-sama belajar dengan anak. Huraian poin ini telah saya tulis dalam entri ini.

2) HANTAR KE TADIKA
Jika tidak ada masa untuk belajar sendiri, bolehlah memilih untuk hantar anak ke tadika atau playschool yang menggunakan target language sebagai medium. Sebolehnya cari tadika yang kanak-kanak di situ bercakap menggunakan target language. Anak akan cepat belajar jika dia melihat kawannya juga menggunakan bahasa seperti dia.

3) SENARAIKAN
Ini salah satu cara yang saya guna. :) Setiap kali kita terfikir apa ayat yang mahu kita gunakan dengan anak, cepat-cepat catatkan dan buat senarai. Kemudian carilah terjemahannya (tanya native speaker bahasa itu, cari di kamus atau internet).Selepas kita tahu terjemahannya, harus segera gunakan dalam perbualan seharian. Dan keraplah rujuk senarai itu.

4) PEMBANTU RUMAH, PENJAGA
Katakan kita ini suami dan isteri bekerjaya, dan perlukan pembantu rumah atau baby sitter untuk anak. Sebolehnya pilihlah pembantu rumah atau baby sitter yang boleh berbahasa dalam target language. Biasanya pembantu rumah filipina boleh berbahasa Inggeris (untuk mereka yang mahu dedahkan anak dengan bahasa Inggeris sejak kecil)

5) UPAH CIKGU
Upahlah seorang cikgu untuk datang ke rumah dan bercakap dengan anak anda dalam target language. Jika anak kita mendengar dan berinteraksi dalam bahasa tersebut SETIAP HARI (atau sekurang-kurangnya 5hari seminggu), meski cuma beberapa jam, sangat banyak yang akan dia belajar. Boleh pilih samada mahu mengupah guru bahasa ataupun pelajar universiti yang boleh berbahasa dalam target language.

6) PINDAH
Pindah ke negara yang menggunakan target language kita sebagai bahasa rasmi. Mungkin cara ini sangat mahal, tapi kalau kita ada kemampuan dan tujuan, cara ini adalah cara yang sangat berkesan. :)

Of Choosing Bilingual Parenting Method

Bismillah.

Have you started your bilingual journey? Or are you still in the midst of choosing which is the best method? Basically there are two main theories when it comes to raising bilingual children; OPOL and ML@H. I will explain about these two theories later. :)

When I first began my bilingual project, I can say that I started it with almost zero knowledge about bilingualism. I simply started because I know that I want my daughter to understand Arabic and English. The only two things that I knew regarding bilingualism at that time were; 1) it's good for the brain and 2) I need to start it as early as possible.

So here is the simple description of the above mentioned methods:

1) OPOL
》》stands for One Parent One Language. Eg: daddy speaks in English and Mommy speaks in Arabic. However, kids still need to know that their dad/mom is not the only person using that language. So it may require the parents to send their kids to playgroups or hire a nanny/teacher to come and speaks in that target language

2) ML@H
》》stands for Minority Language at Home. It means that each and every member of the family speaks using the target language even if they are non native speakers of it. This method is less popular than the first one but it is tremendously successful because it provides extra consistent usage of the language.

As for me, the second method is not suitable since my target is to expose three languages to my daughter. Moreover, my husband doesn't speak Arabic and he is more fluent in English compared to me. So OPOL is our plan, ie.: husband speaks in English with my daughter and I speak in Arabic. What about Malay, the third language?

One thing I can say about it; my daughter is quite excellent in it, considering her current age. I myself am amazed by her proficiency in Malay language. She can construct a long Malay sentence plus she's not 'pelat' at all. Of course her Malay vocabularies are fewer than her arabic & english, but she's good in practicing all the Malay words that she knows. A week with her grandparents, aunties & uncles is totally a booster to her proficiency in her heritage language.

I don't know, but I really feel like doing a research on why my daughter can easily understand and master Malay language despite the fact that me and husband rarely speak in Malay with her. ;D Kidding. But perhaps, what I have written before here are among the reasons.

Whatever it is, I still need more improvement in my own arabic language proficiency. And I need to be very consistent in speaking ONLY arabic with my daughter. Currently I still can't get rid of mixing arabic and english in my conversations with her.

There is one more good method of bilingual parenting, which is a method that I have tried during my early days in this project. What method is that? Well, I will write it in a new entry since this entry has reached its limit.

Till then,
Be awesome, be bilingual. ;)