Using the Internet to Help With Language Immersion

Posted on December 10, 2009
Filed Under Homework, Internet, Learning Strategies, Reading |

Both my kids are in French Immersion. My daughter, who is in Grade 2, brings home French books to read as homework.

I have some high school French under my belt, but that’s about it (so at this point her French is about as good as mine ;) I’m determined to keep up! I’ve been using the Internet to look up words we encounter that I’m not familiar with, so both our vocabularies can grow. Prior to last night I would do this while she was playing, or in bed, and not while she had her book in front of her.

Last night we tried a different approach that we both agreed we’d do from now on. (You know how it is when you stumble across something that works so much better?

While her brother was playing Wii with their Dad, she and I took my laptop and snuck off to a quiet room. She sat with her book in her lap, and I with my laptop. She read, and we looked up each unfamiliar word right then and there, as we encountered them.

Such a big difference…

Rather than me trying to remember to look them up later, then hunting her down to tell her while she’s distracted by something else, instead we learned the words while her attention was on the context of the story and her interest was high. She was even asking me to look up words.

Most interesting of all was that it actually sped up the reading process (contrary to what I had expected), because she was far more focused.

Such a simple thing, but how effective!