2491 teaching the little ones

I am trying to encourage my husband to teach our children Italian. He does speak Italian very well, in my opinion, well he seems to chat well with the locals when we go to Italy on holiday, but he keeps saying he doesn't know the language well enough. We have purchased a satellite so the children can watch some programmes (does anyone know any good ones?) and when the telly is on it encourages him to talk in Italian. Is there anything else I can do?

Category
Che significa? - Italian Language Queries

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Sun, 01/29/2006 - 12:40

You don't say how old the kids are but assuming they're under 7 - you have to make it fun. To be honest, the only way you're going to do this in the UK is to throw the odd Italian word into the conversation - start of with grazie, buon giorno, names of foods etc. Maximize the time in Italy - draw their attention to words THEY find interesting (ice cream flavours, ordering a drink, saying who they are and how old etc). Don't labour it - my first son now 18 pretends he hardly understands a word whilst my middle kid (15) got a job in a local restaurant and could hold her own. We ignore the youngest and he's DESPERATE to learn- and this through annual holidays

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Mon, 01/30/2006 - 10:45

BBC do a learning tape called Muzzi, its expensive though, perhaps you could find on email second hand

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Tue, 01/31/2006 - 08:49

I got Muzzi for my children age 11,9 and 5 and they love it worth every penny and also helps the adults!!! You can get on Cd and they do a cartoon for the tv and a music cd. It is run by the BBC. Excellent!!jay

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Tue, 01/31/2006 - 08:54

Italian cartoons, comic books, etc might be a help - until they grasp the language the characters/drawings should be enough to hold their attention (assuming they are young). Even something like an Italian version of monopoly or something to play - low stress, low technical level of the language - would be fun.

Not sure what else you could do, other than to encourage hubby to engage with the children and not worry how accurate his use of the language is.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Tue, 02/14/2006 - 06:15

Manchester Consulate organises weekly lessons for children in the north west, so maybe other regions do also. Find your local consulate office from this link:
[url]http://www.ambitalia.org.uk/consulit.htm[/url]

My daughter had lessons from native Italian teachers when she was 4 and she loved it. They have an exam structure for older children who want it.