How to Start Teaching Your Child Spanish When You Have No Time

By freshlyplanted - 11:21 AM

Inside: Language learning for busy families! Why foreign language tutoring is important for kids and how PandaTree.com can help make it happen. Perfect for homeschool foreign language, multi-age families and as an online tutoring supplement.

How To Include Homeschool Foreign Language When You Have No Time

"I'm hungry! What's for dinner?" they asked, climbing into the car. Bits of dirt flying off their shoes onto the remnants of our day below: piano books, soccer uniform, drugstore bags, bread.

Can I feed them just bread? I wondered.

Our day was far from over and home was a half hour away. We try to pack picnics on busy days, but getting out the door today had been a matter of survival. Which meant only the necessities: library books, sports equipment, water bottles- and coffee for me.

It was one of "those" days.

Every year seems to get busier, as we try to keep up with their interests. And they're interested in everything! Lately, our oldest has been wanting to learn languages.

Which might be one of the most important things of all.

The Multicultural Advantage

Did you know that 85% of the jobs that will exist in 2030 haven't even been invented yet?

This ever-changing job field means our kids will need flexible skills and the ability to share information. Because the root of all jobs is communication.

Communicating a product idea to someone.
Organizing resources to create the product.
Educating someone on the benefits of the product.
Helping people through issues with the product.
And so on.

Technology makes this sharing even easier as it tears down the walls of distance that used to divide us.

In an ever-shrinking world, language is an important tool to give our kids.

The Do's and Don'ts of Language Learning

But not all language programs are created equal. As a former advanced high school Spanish student with awful pronunciation, I know how easy it is to sidle through language lessons without ever learning to speak well.

It wasn't until I traveled overseas that I got it. Trying to buy a snack in Japan, the little old Japanese lady behind the counter couldn't understand my English or any of my desperate hand language. I finally realized we were never going to understand each other and left the store empty-handed.

Thinking about it later, I understood the problem with my high school Spanish class. There was no real-life experience, so the right pronunciation didn't matter to me.

Face to face communication is a game-changer.

A Language Program for Busy Families

I received our lessons free of charge & was compensated for my time. All opinions are entirely my own. This post contains affiliate links, see our disclosure policy for details.

But how do you teach your child a language that you're not fluent in?

That's the beauty of PandaTree.com. They offer live, one-on-one online foreign language lessons for kids in Mandarin and Spanish. And you never have to leave the house.

Technology brings it to you.

Only 18.5% of students in the US are learning a second language in school @pandatreetutors [tweet this]

Our PandaTree.com Experience

Before signing up our oldest up for lessons, I was a little nervous about:

How to choose the "right" tutor
If she'd feel comfortable with a tutor she just met
Whether she'd stay engaged during the 25 minute lesson

When I visited PandaTree.com to sign up, I was impressed by all the available tutors and time slots. There's so many times to choose from! There's even a short bio for each tutor, so you can learn something about them.

You also complete a short bio for your child with their first name, things they like, and what they want to learn- to help the tutor tailor a lesson just for them.

We signed up for two lessons with two different tutors and ended up adoring both.

They were both patient with Isia, gently reminding her to try out her new words ("En espanol, por favor.") and kept her engaged throughout the lesson.

The interface kept her busy, too. There was a Spanish game for her to play before her lesson began, an interactive lesson with her tutor, then a review game she played at the end.

Afterwards PandaTree.com emailed me the details of her lesson. Great for reviewing with your child and perfect for record-keeping if you homeschool.

With all of our running around for sports and piano lessons, it was so nice to have a lesson at home!

And it made dinner much easier, too :)