每天說英文挑戰 (2022.03.22)

Morning guys,

As an English instructor, I’ve been asked a question a lot.

“What’s the best time for kids to start learning English?”

Before sharing my answer to this question, I have to say that I’m not an expert in child development or brain science, so my opinions are simply based on my personal experiences and observation of my students during these two decades.

So, what’s the best time for kids to start learning English?  My opinion is any point of time can be good as long as the parents use that same language to talk to the kids.  The true purpose of learning a language is using it to communicate.  Instead of thinking about how many vocabulary we know, I prefer to focus on how well I can use the vocabulary I’ve already learned.

For instance, my son (2y11m) has been exposed to multiple languages from my wife, my parents-in-law, and me. So he picks up Mandarin Chinese, Taiwanese, Japanese and English.  A few weeks ago, he coined a term “果凍 fish,” and he was actually referring to “jellyfish.”  He was able to do this because he knows jelly in English, 果凍 in Chinese, jellyfish in English and 水母 in Chinese.  When I heard that, I found it brilliant and he felt proud of himself.

So, no matter when you’d like your kids to begin learning a language, please use the language to talk to them and make the learning process more fun by encouraging them to use their own creativity.

Some people might say, “But I can’t speak English with my kids.” Well, you’d better learn the language first if you genuinely think it’s an important language. 

Again, these thoughts are simply based on my personal experiences, and I hope this sharing can give you a different perspective.

Have a nice day.

中譯：

各位早安，

身為一名英語講師，我被問了很多次 「孩子開始學習英語的最佳時間是什麼時候？」

在分享我的答案之前，我必須先說，我不是兒童發展或腦科學方面的專家，所​​以我的觀點只是基於我這 20 年的個人教學經驗和對學員們的觀察。

那麼，孩子們開始學習英語的最佳時間是什麼時候呢？ 我的觀點是，只要父母能使用英語與孩子交談，任何時間點都可以。 學習一門語言的真正目的是用它來交流。 與其考慮我們知道多少詞彙，我比較在意該如何善用我已經學過的詞彙。

例如，我的兒子（2歲11個月）持續接觸不同語言，這些語言來自於我太太、岳父母和我本身。 所以他會學到國語、台語、日語和英語。 幾週前，他故意自創了一個詞「果凍 fish」，他其實是要講「水母」。 他能這樣自創，是因為他知道 jelly、果凍、jellyfish 和水母。 當我聽到這句話時，我覺得超讚，他也很自豪。

因此，無論你希望孩子何時開始學習一門語言，請實際使用該語言與他們交談，並鼓勵他們發揮自己的創造力，讓學習過程更有趣。

有些人可能會說，「但我沒有能力和我的孩子說英語。」好吧，如果你真心認為英文是一門重要的語言，或許你可以先試著學習這門語言。

同樣，這些想法只是基於我的個人經歷，希望這段分享能提供你不同的觀點。

祝你今天過得愉快。

（延伸閱讀：從腦科學出發，談什麼是好的英文學習發展模式）