Around two thirds of the world's population are bilingual or multilingual and many of these individuals speak more than one language from birth. For parents of a bilingual or multilingual child, one of their biggest concerns is how to encourage their child to speak the minority language. It can be relatively easy to prioritise the minority language, with methods such as minority language at home or one parent one language, before your child starts school. However, once they reach school age, the majority language can easily take over and become the dominant language very quickly.
When most people think about getting outdoors and exploring nature, it will be in forests or fields during the day but did you know there are lots of exciting things to explore in the dark too? Just getting out in the dark to stand in the garden or walk down the street can lead to some excellent wild experiences. At night, the world is still alive with things to see and hear, from nocturnal creatures to the awesome night sky. There is always something to explore!
Often, when people start to think about homeschooling their children, they worry that they won't be able to afford it. They are concerned about the potential cost of resources, homeschool groups or coops, and the loss of income if one parent has to give up work to stay home with the children.
I have a confession to make. I started to write this blog post over a year ago but at that point I was still figuring out how to actually homeschool with a baby around. I waited and waited because I was waiting for it to get easier. I mean, babies aren't difficult forever are they? But the thing is, it started off way easier than it is now.
Muslimori has been teaching Arabic to students of all ages since she moved to the UK from Egypt after completing a degree in linguistics and translation. Her university dissertation looked at the problems foreign learners encounter while attempting to learn Arabic. After witnessing the struggles language learners had with learning the Arabic language, she thought there must be an easier way for them to learn.
It seems ironic that I am writing an article about getting outdoors in bad weather in the middle of June. We are on the brink of summer but the weather is far from summery. In fact, it has rained everyday for over a week now where I am. Not only is it wet, it is also cold and I occasionally have to put the heating on! This is something I never do in June, but I guess we never can predict the great British weather!
In order to speak clearly and make themselves understood, a child must be able to say each speech sound accurately and be able to string these sounds together to make words and phrases. If a child cannot do this, it may be hard to understand them. Children may not acquire the full repertoire of speech sounds until they are 5-8 years old. There are developmental milestones for speech sound acquisition, therefore, different sounds are acquired at different ages. The sounds p, b, t, d, m and w are among the first sounds to be learnt and r and th may be among the last.
