How to teach parents English

silverfoxs

I read quite bit posts in the forum about difficult of learning English and teaching English for elder people.
I would like to offer my personal experience with more than 10 yrs working experience in Education industry.

Step 1:Start with something solid

Lots of people ignore how important English pronunciation is. Some people encourage parents to use Chinese words to replace / mimic English pronunciation. Personally, I think this is very very wrong step.

Because none English speaker would understand your chinglish! Then, what's the point of let your parents try? It will destroy their confidence easily.
English learning step is pronunciation-> Spelling->Words->Grammar->Sentence->reading
If you get your pronunciation wrong, how can you expect your parents to spell the words? If they can't spell the word, how can they memorize new words?

If you do want your parents to learn English, start correct pronunciation practice and practice and practice!
Remember, there are only few syllables to learn comparing thousands and thousands English words.

If anyone is interested, please let me know so I can continue to write. Thanks

芒果飘香

how long do you predict it is gonna take for your parents to be able to master english language?  is it worth all the efforts you put to it considering the facts that you have a full time job and kids to raise and educate ??

Natio

It's a really interesting topic, and I would love to see more from LZ on his / her idea of how to teach parents English.

However I do understand Mango's point of view that it would be hard to 'educate' them especially when you have a busy life, perhaps LZ will tell us how to teach old monkeys some new tricks?

azurechris

总觉得老妈发音有问题，后来发现是听力有问题

芒果飘香

So you're trying to say that it depends whether your parents are monkeys or dogs ? i dont know about monkeys, but you can't teach old dogs new tricks.

silverfoxs

Well, didn't realize I have got reply so soon.
Basically, the investment you spend on your parents on English will be great return once they become independent.
That's the reason we invest.
Just imaging that, if your parents can take public transport, paying the bill, drive around, making friends and seek doctors (Chinese doctors) and start a complete new life in here. How much time it can save on your life?

I kinda agree with Mango's point. However, it is totally up to person. Some parents would like to learn new things and some just like to keep the old way as it is.  

For those parents who refuses to learn, I can't offer any suggestions. But for most parents who are eager to learn English and still try to contribute to family, I believe this could be a good method to try.

silverfoxs

I totally understand your situation. With elder people who suffer some physical condition, it's extremely important to actually help them to improve their fading ability.
My gf's mom has sight issue and requires a reading glass. But she refuses to wear it because she thinks she can just go by for everything.
I put a rope on her glasses legs and hang on her neck. I also bring her to places (like supermarket, Chinese restaurants) and those place where she needs to use reading glasses.
Also, she can't use iPad without glasses.
After a while, she starts to wear it and enjoy it because it's just on her neck.
Hence, you need to help your parents to overcome physical obstacles and they will enjoy it.

silverfoxs

原帖由 芒果飘香 于 2012-2-15 17:20 发表
how long do you predict it is gonna take for your parents to be able to master english language?  is it worth all the efforts you put to it considering the facts that you have a full time job and kids ...

I have to be honest to you. I haven't tried it yet on my gf's mom since currently she is focusing on iPad which greatly improves her knowledges of Australia and everything else. English will requires more time and diligence.

I reckon 3 months is a good time for her to learn pronunciation and basic English words.
Don't put any complicate sentence to your parents yet. They can't absorb it.
so just words from supermarket and words from basic meaning. Like Food, door (pointing it when u say it).
Remember, you can't just say, door and expect she will remember and learn it.
You need to actually write down on her notebook (oh, yeah, she will need one), and write like d oo (ou) r.
It's same thing as teaching child except u need to be more patient.
Homework is necessary.
Parents may have short memory issue but that can be overcome by repeating.
so repeat, repeat, repeat.
at least 7 times a day, 7 days a week. Yes, to the same word!

Natio

原帖由 芒果飘香 于 2012-2-16 13:16 发表
So you're trying to say that it depends whether your parents are monkeys or dogs ? i dont know about monkeys, but you can't teach old dogs new tricks.

Relax, I said I DO understand your point of view, and 'to teach old monkeys some new tricks' is just a common idiom which means it's not easy to teach aged people some ideas.... don't get stressed before really understood what others say...

芒果飘香

correct me if i'm wrong ,but i didn't think you used the idiom right.
look it up in the dictionary before jumping to any judgement yet.
if you have had a tad of sense of humor you wouldn't have said that. keep up the smile on your face. cheers .

芒果飘香

besides. it's an insult to refer to someone as a monkey

Natio

原帖由 芒果飘香 于 2012-2-17 12:12 发表
besides. it's an insult to refer to someone as a monkey

原帖由 芒果飘香 于 2012-2-17 12:09 发表
correct me if i'm wrong ,but i didn't think you used the idiom right.
look it up in the dictionary before jumping to any judgement yet.
if you have had a tad of sense of humor you wouldn't have said t ...

OK, apologies if you are upset by my sense of humour.

And my apologies to LZ as well, this is off the topic - I am open to any ideas and comments, and will not narrow my mind to such meaningless arguments.

Will not comment anything on this post again, but interested in seeing LZ’s updates.

silverfoxs

hmm, updates.
Like what I said before, I didn't really focus on teaching English at this stage. But I do spend quite bit time on using iPad.
Well, tried last weekend, couple of hours of teaching gain almost nothing.
I tried to inspire her why she needs to push this button instead of just pushing this button.
It failed completely. It turns out she has been out of date for too long and she was confused with button on the screen and camera hole on the iPad.
At the end, I just told her to use those steps to send message and keep practice about 20 times.
It worked.

P.S:
We actually took her to take train rather than driving her around so she can understand how train system works.
And we are surprised to learn that she actually memorize "Flinders Street" by heart and able to keep that word in her memory and recite it after few days.

I guess what I have learned here is , for old people, don't teach them too much why and how. Just give them instructions and ask them to repeat. Once they have repeated instructions to certain times, they actually picked it up and accepted.

silverfoxs

P.S 2:
We took her to Supermarket and I took photos of some signs like Pork, Lamb, beef and sent them to her ipad account.
so she is able to load them up and memorize those words. I found this is better way to learn English words for her.

silverfoxs

REcommend an app which will help your parents and children to learn English

英语发音
http://itunes.apple.com/cn/app/id440630857?mt=8