Teaching your kids Spanish is an amazing thing to do for them! Since Spanish is one of the most-spoken languages around the world, fluency in Spanish will create many benefits for your children, both now and in the future. So, congratulations! You’re a great parent for helping them learn a new language.
However, the path to Spanish fluency can be bumpy sometimes. Want to know one of the obstacles that comes up a lot? Parents commonly tell us that no matter how much time they spend trying to teach their children Spanish, their kids won’t use it and revert back to English.
We totally get why this is frustrating: After all, you’re putting lots of time (and perhaps money) into helping your kids acquire Spanish fluency, and you want something to show for it!
The good news is that there are effective strategies to help your kids stop switching to English and start speaking Spanish. Let’s explore some!
What Keeps Kids from Using Spanish?
One of the biggest jobs kids have is learning to express themselves and communicate with others. They have needs, and communication is how they get those needs met.
This is how your children learned English (or whatever their first language was). And we’re betting you remember a time that they got frustrated because they didn’t have the words to tell you what they needed.
So they resorted to other ways of letting you know: like crying when they feel bad, spitting out food they don’t like or reaching for the toy they want.
Something similar happens when you’re trying to get your kids to speak more Spanish around the house. There’ll be times when they just don’t have the Spanish vocabulary to convey what they want to get across. But now they can fall back on English.
Here’s another way to think about it:
Your kid: I want to paint something! Oh, no, there’s no paint. Hmmm… Oh, there are some pencils over there! Cool!
What’s happening here? Your kid doesn’t have their first choice (paints) for accomplishing what they want to do (create a picture). But, luckily for them, there’s another way to accomplish their goal: pencils.
The same happens when your kids are learning Spanish. If they don’t have the communication tool you want them to use (Spanish), they’ll fall back on the tool that is available: English.
Give Your Child the Gift of Spanish!
How to Get Kids to Use More Spanish
First, don’t get in the habit of letting your kids respond to you in English if you’re speaking Spanish to them.
Letting them get by with speaking English is all too easy to do “just this once.” But that “once” can turn into twice — and so forth and so on. Before you know it, they’re just not bothering to answer you in Spanish at all.
This might not seem like a big deal, especially when you’re all busy. On harried days, worrying about your kids’ Spanish skills may not feel like the top priority.
But this is actually a really big deal. When kids don’t practice their target language, they forget what they’ve already learned. And then they’re back to Square 1 with learning Spanish.
Instead of letting kids switch to English when they’re having trouble communicating something in Spanish, help them find the Spanish words to express what they want to say.
Remind them that you’re always there with a vocabulary assist when they get stuck — they just need to ask. Give them the word or sentence they need, and then ask them to repeat it back to you.
If you notice your kids struggling to use Spanish, it also helps to slow down the conversation. This is especially important when you’re a native Spanish speaker, but your kids aren’t. Spanish is typically spoken a lot faster than English is, so kids who are new to the language will have trouble keeping up.
Finally, remember to be patient — both with your children and with yourself. Kids won’t become fluent in Spanish overnight. But they will get there. And they’ll get there faster if you just keep talking to them and giving them other opportunities to have conversations in Spanish.
Ensure Your Kids’ Spanish Fluency with TFK
Here’s another tip to help your kids speak more Spanish and increase their comfort with the language: Enroll them in TruFluency Kids Spanish online immersion classes.
All our lessons are based on our Bellieu Method, created by our founder, language expert Micah Bellieu. Micah realized that studying a language through textbooks and vocabulary drills didn’t result in fluency. So she developed her own approach that emphasizes lots of conversational practice.
In our classes, that conversation practice comes through doing a variety of entertaining activities in Spanish. You’ll watch your children singing, dancing, playing word games, crafting, storytelling, and even cooking in our classes, all as they build their Spanish skills.
Take a 30-minute trial class now! Every trial class feels super personalized, because there are no more than six students. After it, you’ll have the opportunity to join a parent Q & A to answer all your questions.
