Keeping the kids entertained over the summer holidays can be difficult. Many parents also like to make sure they do some educational activities too. Many more worry about the cost of such activities. Well, here at Lingotot we've devised a FREE week-long online craft club for kids. Each and every day of week beginning 13th August we will be posting a new French video online which demos a simple craft activity 100% in French for the children to watch, understand and copy - imagine Blue Peter in French! We will also sneak in some songs ;)

We really hope you enjoy doing the simple crafts together and please please send us your photographs of your finished masterpieces, or even short videos of you completing the lovely little tasks. You can email them to us or upload them to our Facebook page.

To access the videos, simply click here or find the link on our homepage. Please share with all of your friends!

Happy crafting!

PS Don't forget to sign up for your new term of classes now to secure your place

Our very own Angela Sterling, Lingotot founder, was in the press this week talking about Michael Gove's plans to make languages compulsory in English primary schools. Speaking to The Journal this week she did of course welcome the plans, but here at Lingotot we think that languages should be made compulsory at an earlier age than the proposed 7 years old.....our little children pick up the language effortlessly and much like they learn their own mother tongue.

Angela also worries about the lack of funding for the scheme, "Primary school teachers do a fantastic job. However, the majority of them are not language specialists and cannot speak the language fluently. “Schools will need extra funding to train their own teachers or bring in specialist providers, like Lingotot, to fill the skills gap."

What a busy week here at Lingotot! Our wonderful and clever Lingotots have been creating some lovely crafts after following our instructions 100% in French at full speed! Quite an achievement! Here are some examples of their work: rainbows and little fish...

We're all excited her at Lingotot HQ as we've won the Netmums Preschool Class Awards!

The award is extra special too as it is completely parent-led. Our lovely LingoMums and LingoDads nominated us and then voted for us and we can't thank them enough.

MERCI!

We are very excited here at Lingotot with the news that languages are about to be made compulsory in primary schools.

According to the Telegraph, "Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, will say that subjects such as French, German, Spanish, Mandarin, Latin or Greek will be made a compulsory part of the primary school timetable for the first time.

Ministers hope the move will make pupils better-equipped to compete in a global economy while reversing the “damaging collapse” in GCSE language take-up.

Currently about one in ten state primary schools offers no language lessons at all and a further 20 per cent only offer it to some year groups, according to the most recent official figures.

The move to make languages a requirement from age seven will form part of a new primary National Curriculum, taking effect in 2014."

To read more from this article, please click here. You can also read more about it on the BBC website, "New curriculum 'to make languages compulsory from seven' "

A warm welcome to Lingotot HQ for LingoTed, our cute little language friend and mascot!

LingoTed will be going on lots of adventures over the coming weeks and we'll keep you posted on his comings and goings....he may even go for a sleepover with one of our Lingotots. Please get in touch if you'd like to volunteer to look after LingoTed for a few days and report back on his activities with photographs :D

For some people choosing a language is easy and obvious. Perhaps you are a native  or fluent speaker of a language or you have relatives who are. However,  if  you  are like many families here in the UK, perhaps your experience is limited to some basic school-level French and asking for two beers on holiday in Spanish! That makes your decision a little tricky.

You may want to consider the following as a good starting point on language choice:
  * Do you have a strong preference for or a love of a particular language?
  * Have you studied any languages or do you know them well?
  * Do you feel comfortable using this language with your child(ren)?
  * Are there any other family members with language skills?
  * How often would you or other members of your family be able to use the
    language with your little one(s)?
  * Are there any languages spoken in your local area which you could easily
    access?
  * What kind of languages classes or playgroups are available locally?
  * Is there a Lingotot class near you? If not you could contact us about
    starting one!
  * Do any local nurseries or childminders offer a second language?
  * Do you live close to a university or similar institution where you could
    easily access foreign-speaking babysitters?

Don’t forget that when you have chosen your language that dedication is they key - so stick with it!

When is the best time to start learning another language?

I get asked this question a lot. Because I run foreign language sessions for babies, toddlers and young children, some parents approach me concerned that they’ve “left it too late” to start. The great news is that it’s never too early or two late to start learning another language! There are distinct advantages to starting to learn at different ages.

Adult learners are very motivated. Perhaps you regret not learning a language when we were younger, perhaps you need to use it for work, but whatever the reason you can bet you don’t have a lot of spare time so your dedication will be second-to-none! There’s no slacking off for adults, they hammer the books hard!

At the start of secondary school, learners go through what I like to call a brain growth spurt! This is an ideal time to learn lots of new things, including a language. Perhaps this is one of the reasons why languages were traditionally introduced at aged eleven in the UK. At this age, children already know how to learn which gives them an amazing head start over younger children.

Primary school children have lots of enthusiasm for language learning. They love to show off what they have learned and they are curious about other cultures. As they are beginning to read and write, they have a range of sources they can access for help in their language learning. They can begin to read in the foreign language and try some writing too. All of these skills make for a great start and they often make better progress than babies and toddlers in the beginning.

Having said all of that, I personally believe the best time to start introducing a second language is when they are babies or toddlers. Very young children will pick up the language in the same way as they learned their mother tongue, naturally and easily. Think of it this way: When a baby is born, it has no idea where in the world it is going to arrive. It’s brain is lovely and flexible, ready to soak up any new language is hears. At about the age of 8-10 months, the baby then starts to “tune in” to the language(s) it hears around him/her. This means that foreign language sounds which do not exist in the mother tongue, start to be “tuned out” ever so gradually. You can read more about this here and here.

Many experts do agree that there seems to be an ‘optimal’ time period for learning a second language: from birth to three years. In other words, right when a child is learning the first language. The time when his/her mind is still open and flexible. Learning a second language boosts toddlers’ brain function.

It has even been suggested that babies born to bilingual mothers who regularly spoke both languages during pregnancy exhibit different language preferences than infants born to mothers speaking only one language.
I often hear people say that children are like “sponges” who “soak up” language effortlessly. If this is the case, then why not take advantage of this incredible skill to introduce new languages to them? Just imagine, you could save them from hours and hours conjugating verbs in a classroom, sweating over pages of vocabulary learning and an accent that’s never quite right. Instead you could nurture not only their language skills, but their love of that language too!

Everyone speaks English, right?

There are so many benefits to knowing a second language. The most obvious ones spring to mind first; travelling, understanding other cultures, enjoying films, books, music from different countries, intercultural understanding etc. Learning additional languages enables learners to engage with people of diverse cultures in ways that recognise differences and create cultural understanding. Language is inseparable from ways of knowing the world and involves connecting, engaging, and interacting with others and negotiating boundaries.

There are many advantages which are less obvious.
Knowing two languages can give you all-round intellectual benefits. Being multilingual improves school performance and increases overall problem-solving skills.  Research also suggests bilingual children are more creative than monolingual speakers and score higher on academic tests. ‎It’s also been suggested that bilingual toddlers have better concentration too. According to Dr. James Mason, Columbia University of Development , "Research also proves that young children who learn a language before the age of five tend to have superior reading, writing, analytical and social skills, as well as more extensive vocabularies than their monolingual peers."

Being multilingual is a plus on both college admission applications and job applications as well. Top universities really rate A levels in foreign languages, which appear on university “A lists” of subjects. For example, at Trinity College, Cambridge a whopping 11 of the 25 subjects on their A list are languages.

After your studies you could well earn more money too if you are bilingual. To find and keep valuable bilingual workers, employers are willing to pay larger sums of money. On average, bilingual pay differentials range between 5 and 20 percent per hour more than the position's base rate, according to research.

Being bilingual can actually help your health too! Research shows that the regular use of two languages appears to delay the onset of Alzheimer’s disease symptoms.

With all of these benefits available, the question shouldn’t be “why should I learn a second language?”, rather it should be “can I afford not to learn another language?”