TCS believes that exposing young kids, especially our preschool students, to a second language, is really important because the best time to teach children another language is before they turn eight-years-old when they’re better able to absorb the language and pick up the accent. Not only that but exposing our kids to Spanish teaches them language structure and about Spanish-speaking cultures.
And, young children love to learn Spanish! Just like everything else at TCS, we teach – and the children learn – Spanish through play. It is very easy for kids to understand new concepts through TPR (Total Physical Response), a teaching technique that helps students experience a language before using it, in every lesson.
During my weekly Spanish classes with the 3-5-year-old classes, we sing, play and draw to learn Spanish. This week with the pre-kindergartners, we talked about las formas (shapes). The kids helped me think of objects shaped like a círculo (circle) and cuadrado (square). They came up with such great ideas: they drew robots using squares and pointed out that their eyes and pizza are both circles! Finally, they really enjoyed watching a video of the shapes in action.
There are so many wonderful benefits to learning another language and no better way to learn it than through playing!
