Start with
songs! Not only does this help you with
vocabulary, it also helps you with pronunciation! I always wondered how those foreign singers
could sing English songs even though they couldn’t speak English! Now I know!
Just pick up a CD with Christian children’s songs, and start playing it! I put the emphasis on “children’s” songs,
because there are adult worship songs, too!
While we were in Mexico, during
those formative high school years, I learned a lot of little kid songs in
Spanish. Most of you learned, “I’m in
the Lord’s Army” in English. But because I didn’t go to Sunday School as a
little girl, I learned those songs in Mexicali in Spanish first.
I started when my babies were
babies. Since I didn’t know all of those Christian
children’s songs in English, I sang them in Spanish. As my children grew to be toddlers and I got
a cassette tape of children’s worship songs, I finally learned the words in
English. And boy, was I surprised at
what they did to the songs to make them rhyme!
When my children were in
elementary school, because elementary school went so much faster than I had
ever anticipated, I did one lesson of Spanish every other day. It took maybe about 20 minutes. But I made sure it was fun and I didn’t pour
too much into them at one time.
This is how I kind of structured that time:
Songs
Phrases: (Hello, goodbye, my name is, and if you’re
ever in a church while on a service project in Mexico, you will hear “Dios le
bendiga” - God bless you.)
Vocabulary
Bible Verses
But this post will be about songs. I'll explain the other ideas in later posts.
Purchase CDS with children's songs in the language you want to teach. I purchased Bible songs and other popular children's songs. If you have the same songs in English, they can definitely hear the correlation in the tune, and it will help them learn the vocabulary even more quickly!
Along with the Bible songs and the nursery rhyme songs, I actually received the WOW top 40 in Spanish. My high schooler can currently sing many of those songs word for word in Spanish.
In the "if I had to do it again" category, I would have purchased a CD with Mexican Folk Songs. This is like teaching them"Old MacDonald", but the songs that they sing in Mexico.
Some songs I just translated. For instance, when I was teaching body parts in Spanish, I sang "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes", but I easily translated it into Spanish because there are no other words, just body parts - Cabeza, Hombros, Rodillas, Dedos. And the better they got at it, the faster they would sing it!
And did I mention that when they get older they can help lead worship time in an elderly home, in a children's VBS time, and in a church worship service?
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