It's a small world, after all.

Sunday was a gorgeous day- breezy and cool.  The sky was that perfect shade of blue with puffy white clouds just like children love to draw.   "Get out!," I announced to my family "Everyone out!  It's a beautiful day and we're going outside to play!"

We headed out to the local park so the kids could enjoy the swings and slides.  No sooner had we hit the sand than my son reaches out and taps me on the belly, " Tag- you're it!" and off we ran!  Giggling and running, we were having so much fun I barely noticed the other little hand that soon tapped me on the belly.  A little boy wanted to play.  "Me?" he asked and pointed to himself in  question, could we include him in our game?"

With our new little friend we continued to run and play and soon discovered an important detail- this little boy had recently moved to Florida from China.  He spoke little to no English.  But, he spoke "kid", so he and my son played merrily for an hour or so.  I hung back and watched.  Fascinated by what I saw unfold in that short span of time.  In one short hour, that little boy was talking- his new vocabulary including words like "run!" "Me,too" "push" "slide" "my turn" and even "count! 1,2,3,..."- after my son introduced him to the wonderful new world of "hide and go seek" James was even repeating a few words back in Chinese- don't ask me what he was saying, I haven't a clue- but they were speaking to each other and it made sense to them- which I guess is what matters in children's language learning, Chinese or otherwise!  

Children learn so quickly. They learn particularly well from each other.  So the lesson of the day?  Get out there and play.  Maybe start a playgroup of children who are all trying to learn the same language, or even better- if your child is trying to learn a language, start a playgroup with children of that native language who are trying to learn English! Is there a part of town where the language you are trying to teach your child is spoken more predominantly?  Find a park there and go play- your children will quickly make friends and learn so much in the process- language, culture, friendship and so much more.   It's a small world, after all.

Enough with the chit-chat, let's start talking! 

Consuelo Bova,
CEO of SmartMouthLearning.com