【講師コラム】ジョイ講師 No.7 How I learned English as a second language

Back when I was a child, my parents thought me basic English at home before entering pre-school. This includes introducing myself, identifying fruits, vegetables and animals. Ever since I was young, I enjoyed reading books. I can recall the story books that my father bought for me when I was still little. My father was the one who taught me how to read. Reading helped me a lot because every time I encounter new words that I can’t understand, I wrote it down in my English vocabulary notebook and searched the definition in the dictionary. In our country, English subject is compulsory every school year. Every English class, our teacher would not allow us to speak in Vernacular but only English. She would have us talk to our seatmates having a conversation as simple as how our day was going. It even became more interesting during high school, our teacher will let us work on book reports, essays and story telling which was fun and help me become more fluent.

I have 2 year old son and he just started learning how to speak. Children always listen to what adults say and they will repeat it. At his young age he knows how to say the alphabet from A-Z even though he can’t pronounce the letter correctly 😁 He can also count 1-10 and can introduce himself and identify some of the colors. In my free time, I always play with him and teach him basic things like letters and numbers. I do my best to talk to him in English so that he will get used to the language. One of our favorite activity is to listen to English stories and cartoons in YouTube. Teaching English is a fun thing to do, you do not need to pressure yourself but enjoy have fun and later on you will get use to speaking the language.