Hanoi teacher teaches English to her child since birth

Teacher Pham Hanh has 20 years of experience teaching English, currently in charge of the English department of Hanoi University of Science and Technology, shares about teaching English to children from an early age using natural methods.

When I look at education forums, the questions that I see parents often ask are: "At what age should my child learn English?", "Does my child need to be fluent in Vietnamese before learning English?". There are many opinions in the comments section, some say they should learn from three years old, some say they should learn from five years old, some say they should be fluent in Vietnamese before learning... As for me, my answer is "My child should learn English from 0 years old".

That is what I have applied to my two children and witnessed the miracle in their language development. Therefore, I really want to share so that parents can clearly see the benefits of letting their children approach English early.

This sharing is especially necessary for parents with children aged 0-6. However, parents with children over 6 years old can also apply it and still find it useful, because this is a general principle for learning any language.

Early education philosophy

Let me start by telling you how I approached and believed in the philosophy of early education, especially early language education. I first heard about it in 2006, when this method was just starting in Vietnam.

A friend before studying abroad in the US gave me the book “I must go to Harvard to study economics”. The book is the diary of a Chinese mother who applies early and comprehensive education for her children, and her only daughter received a full scholarship from Harvard University along with many other outstanding achievements. This can be considered one of the first books on the bookshelf about early education in Vietnam. Later, some other books appeared such as “The 0-year-old plan” by Phung Duc Toan, “Teaching children to be smart early” by Glenn Doman... However, at that time, I only had and knew that book.

Anyone who has read this will admire the Chinese mother for how she wholeheartedly educates her child to develop well, but also find her way of educating somewhat too harsh. This way of educating was once the motto of Chinese mothers and was criticized a lot by the West with the term “tiger mom”. Personally, with the “instinct” of an educator and an English teacher, I am impressed and satisfied with two things.

The first is the saying, “If you give birth to a child and don’t teach it, it’s like a hen.” The second is the fact that the Chinese mother didn’t know any English, and only knew how to borrow an English cassette to play for her child to listen to for an hour every day. A few years later, when she was in elementary school and had her first English class, the girl came home and told her mother, “When I heard English, it felt as familiar as when I heard Chinese.”

Regarding the first point, I really like this comparison, a comparison that can make those who have not paid attention to child education feel ashamed and a comparison that shows the particularly important role of education for a child. Exactly, if only taking care of the physical body, a child can only develop the “animal” part, but with education, the child can develop the “human” part.

As for the second point, I was really surprised that she felt English was as familiar as her mother tongue while only being exposed to it for an hour a day. This shows the power of regular and continuous language exposure as well as the great effect of early education.

From this incident, I connected with English teaching methods, language acquisition principles, language acquisition in the process of self-studying English and the process of a child acquiring his/her mother tongue. And I concluded that in the future, when I get married and have children, I will have to teach them English from the age of 0.

Results

With my eldest daughter, born in 2009, I started speaking English to her completely when she was nine months old. She was also exposed to many English books from this age.

At the age of two, my child could speak quite a lot of English and was slightly better at Vietnamese, using either English or Vietnamese depending on the person he was communicating with and the language used in the story. A year later, he switched between the two languages ​​flexibly for different communication purposes.

I started teaching my child English (and Vietnamese) at the age of three and by the age of four he could read short stories in both English and Vietnamese, about 10 pages long. By the age of 5-6, he was able to read from children's comic books to "serious" books several hundred pages long, such as Children's Encyclopedia or World History. Due to his early exposure to books and his personality, books became his great passion, helping him access a lot of rich knowledge.

Following the success of the first child, with my second child born in 2016, I applied early teaching from two weeks old, including communicating completely in English with the child and exposing the child to English letters. At the age of two, the child can understand and communicate in both English and Vietnamese, although still limited, and recognizes some English words that have been learned. I believe that, with perseverance and appropriate methods, at the age of 3-4, the child will be able to communicate more confidently in both languages ​​and can initially read short books for children.

Witnessing the miracle of my child's language acquisition ability, I really hope that more parents believe in and apply early learning methods for their children because for children, this is the golden period for brain development. For children, learning is a natural need to explore the world, but it should be "learning while playing, playing while learning".