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Hello folks.
That's folks, F-O-L-K-S, meaning people.
Hello folks.
I'm not saying hello to a fox.
Although if there are any foxes listening, hello to you too.
But anyway, hello everyone.
Hello folks.
As you can see, this episode is called The Superpower of Starting English Early with Kids.
And, as you can probably work out from the title, we're going back to the subject of helping your children to learn English and indeed other children to learn English too.
This is a topic that I've touched upon in the past, notably in episodes like the one with Alexander and his daughter Alice.
That was episode 685.
Alexander bringing up his daughter Alice to speak English.
And also, I've talked about this subject in conversations with my wife over the years.
And there was the fairly recent episode with Anna Tyree about the language of children and parenting, where we looked at lots of vocabulary surrounding the world of children and parenting and childcare.
That was episode 814.
This time, the focus is on how you, as a non-native speaker of English, can give your kids a head start with their learning of English by talking to them in English at home.
Obviously, for many of you this might not be relevant, because you don't have children, or you're not planning to have children, or because you already have children and they're all grown up now and so it's too late.
Or perhaps your kids are all grown up and they actually speak better English than you.
In which case, maybe they should listen to this and use some of the tips to help you learn English.
I don't know.
But anyway, for a lot of you out there who are parents of young children or who are going to have children and you want them to speak English, this episode is for you.
Everyone else.
I hope you stick around, because there are bound to be things that you can gain from this too.
Now, I know that it might seem a bit strange to speak English to your children.
And of course, I'm talking to those people listening who don't speak English as a first language right.
Just in case you didn't know, this is a podcast for learners of English, okay?
Now it might seem a bit strange to speak English to your children at home, or you might feel reluctant to do it because you think your level isn't quite right, which is something that people do, right to me sometimes.
Well, this conversation is here to speak to you about that, to encourage you to speak English with your kids, to show you that you can do it and to show you some ways in which you can do it too.
My guest in this episode is Bree Acey.
She is a podcaster too, and she has a podcast for learners of English that focuses on storytelling.
Her show is called Into the Story, Into the Story.
In episodes of Into the Story, Brie invites guests onto her show to tell their personal stories.
As you will hear, Brie invited me onto her show to tell a story of my own.
And I told one which I haven't shared on Luke's English Podcast before.
It's a funny and quite dramatic story of fatherhood challenges with operating in a second language and with a bit of culture shock mixed in there too.
And it should give you a laugh. or three.
So you can listen to my story on Bree's podcast now.
It should be available now.
So you could check out the recent episode of Into the Story with me.
It's available wherever you get your podcasts.
You'll also find a link to Into the Story in the description.
OK, now Bree is an English teacher.
She works with adults and children.
She has a background in psychology and specifically child development.
And she's very interested in the whole subject of language learning in children.
So let's listen to what she has to say about this.
And let's listen to some words of encouragement and advice on how you can help your kids to improve their English from an early age.
OK, so here we go.
Hello, Brie.
Hi, welcome onto my podcast.
Thank you, Luke.
It's lovely to be here.
So we just recorded an episode of your podcast.
We did.
Which is called Into the Story.
What's the whole idea with your show?
Well, on my show we help people learn English, improve their English, by listening to true stories told by very, very interesting people from all over the world, such as yourself.
Yeah, you're an interesting person.
I'm a very, no, I'm a very, very interesting person, apparently.
Yeah.
So, yeah, you asked me to tell a true story and we just did that.
So how would you summarise the story that I told?
I don't expect you to give all the events and details, but what was the story that I told you?
I mean, I know the story.
I mean, I'm asking you to explain it.
I know it because it happened to me and I just told it.
But anyway, could you do it?
Yeah, I can.
Well, you're a father.
Of two now.
Yeah.
And you tell a story, a very charming story, where you are like Liam Neeson and you fight through the streets, the rough streets of Paris, to save something for your daughter.
And I think that your listeners are going to have to listen to the story to see how it ends.
If you in fact are a hero, you are Liam Neeson, or you just completely disappoint and let down your whole family.
Your listeners, you'll have to check out the episode to find out all about that.
So Brie, we're going to talk about children and helping your children with their English, and the importance of starting early.
And we'll kind of talk about that in quite a lot of detail, about what parents can do to really give their kids a head start in their English or to kind of like really make the most of the really important period in childhood in order to help them improve their English.
We're going to talk about that.
But before we do that, let me just ask you to perhaps tell my audience a little bit about yourself.
So what's, you know, who are you?
Where are you?
Where are you from?
What do you do?
What's your background?
Just everything.
Not literally your background now behind you, because I can see you're standing in front of a painting of some mountains.
But I mean your background in the sense of the things you've done in your life.
A little joke there for everyone.
You're welcome.
Okay, so my name is Bree and I am from Canada.
I'm actually, this is what I grew up looking at, these mountains, the Rocky Mountains.
By the way, most people who are listening to this are listening to the audio version.
They're in audio land, so they can't actually see the painting on the wall behind you.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So behind me is a misty mountain scene of some mountains called the Three Sisters Mountains, which is near Calgary Alberta Canada, Banff.
Anyways, very beautiful, very, very beautiful part of the world.
And so I am Canadian.
I have a Canadian accent, which is the exact same as an American accent, essentially.
Most people, unless you're from Texas or New York, a Canadian accent is the same as a California accent.
How do you say... Just one quick thing.
I'm going to write something for you.
I hope you don't take this the wrong way.
I'm genuinely curious.
How do you say that?
I knew you were going to say that.
Out and about.
Right.
So I would say out and about.
Say it again for us.
Out and about.
Right.
It's almost exactly the same.
Why did I ask you to say out and about?
Because some people in mostly eastern Canada would say oat in a boat or something like that.
Yeah.
Not so much in the western parts of Canada, though.
No.
No.
The western part it's, I would say like, more like western America, the western USA and western Canada.
It's all a very similar accent.
Of course, you can hear little things, but pretty much the same.
Okay.
And yeah, so I have been living in Barcelona, Spain for 13 years now.
And when I arrived here, like so many English speakers, I started teaching English.
My background is actually in psychology.
But when I came here, I started teaching English.
There's quite a lot of similarities, actually.
I don't know if you found this Luke, between doing English classes and feeling like you're doing a therapy session sometimes.
Sure.
Of course.
Yeah, a lot of psychology.
Yeah, a lot of psychology, knowing about people, knowing how to manage people's emotions or stress or goals, all sorts of things.
So me and my then boyfriend, now husband, we started a language school. in 2012.
Then we started an online school in 2020 where we teach mainly Cambridge exams and private classes.
And we have a podcast and that's kind of our passion.
My passion specifically is stories.
I love stories.
So we get to interview people where they tell true stories and then we edit them up, all nice, and put music.
And we like to think about it like I don't know.
It kind of feels like a movie for your ears, something like that, where you get to learn things about life, get to learn things about different people and you get to improve your English.
So yeah, that's me.
Okay, and it's called Into the Story.
Into the Story.
You'll find links in the description, guys.
OK, so what about kids then?
So that's the title of this episode.
It's going to be.
The title of this episode is going to be something like the superpower of starting English early with kids.
So tell us about that then.
Right.
So I am a mom.
I have two kids, two little boys, two and four.
So any other people out there who have this age of children, it's hardcore.
It's real.
It's real.
Um, but when, so like I said, I studied psychology, um, specifically infant development.
I also worked um with people with autism.
Um, When you work in this sector of psychology, a lot of it is linguistics, language acquisition, how people communicate.
When my boys were born, I just became very interested in reading everything I could about bilingualism and specifically early language acquisition.
Once that became an interest for me, I started just doing workshops because I already was in the sector of teaching language and all of the parents would approach me and say, what can I do?
So I started running a workshop and we're going to go over some of the main points of that workshop today.
About what can you know non-native speakers or people who speak English as a second or third language, how can they use that to their child's benefit?
And really, when is the ideal time to start, or when is a good time to start exposing your kid to English?
One of your things is to start early.
Tell us about the reasons why it's important to start early.
How early are we talking about?
Basically, as early as possible.
Newborns start listening to language before they're even newborns.
They start listening to their mother and anyone around them speak by the third trimester.
So they're actually already starting to listen to the patterns of the languages being spoken around them.
So early could be considered already in the third trimester.
But when I say early, I basically from birth.
So from birth until three years old, is considered by.
There's a researcher called Patricia Cole and she specifically looks at language acquisition in young children.
And she describes zero to three as like the golden age.
It's just when you look at the graph.
You just see the language capacity from zero to three is just like top, like These little people are just taking everything in.
They're making millions of neural connections every second, which is like so much more than we do as adults.
And this capacity basically continues until they're three, then it drops off until seven and then it slowly goes down.
I'm not talking about that they don't have the ability.
It's just their capacity to just capture language just goes down from seven until around puberty.
And then that's when we notice that there's huge changes in the plasticity of the brain.
So the brain's ability to make new connections, learn new things extremely easily, which is what is required for learning a language.
And so the earlier you can start, the easier it will be for them to pick it up without formal language instruction.
Does that make sense?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it does, of course.
Yeah, I mean in layman's terms.
You could say that a child's brain is like a sponge and it just absorbs the things that it's exposed to.
Several things come into my mind.
One of them is the question of What people might think when they hear that, which is that, oh so when you get to puberty, after that it's hopeless, is it?
In terms of language learning.
You don't want to give that impression, do you?
No, no, no, not at all.
So imagine a world where a child was not exposed to any English or any other language other than their native language until say, puberty.
The way they would have to pick up, the way they would have to start learning that language would not simply be by exposing them to the language a little bit and they would just naturally pick it up.
It would probably have to follow some formal language instruction.
So teaching a little bit of grammar, prompting them to use certain phrases in certain contexts, where young children that formal language instruction is just not necessary.
However, you do need to prompt them to use the language, but that's another thing we can get into later.
So the little kids, it's just a natural thing they don't even think about.
It just happens as they are exposed to it or as they use it or as they develop relationships with people in that language.
And as kids get older and when people get to puberty and beyond puberty I mean sort of happens in the teenage years, right.
I mean, I don't know if we need to explain what puberty is.
Adolescence.
It's, you know, the process of the physical changes that occur when kids turn into adults.
It's a horrible experience.
Oh, God.
It's hard.
It's hard.
We call it middle school.
Grade seven.
Grade seven.
So like 12, 13, I'm pretty sure is like the worst year for every person.
We all remember the experience of going through puberty.
It's horrible.
Suddenly you see you get spots all over your body and other things happening.
Like, oh, God, what is this metamorphosis?
What is this monster I'm becoming?
Yeah.
But I mean, we probably also remember that our brains change at that time.
We start thinking about the world in a different way.
And that change that we experience from the inside also, there's a change that happens that changes our linguistic ability at that time as well.
And so yeah, I guess the point you're making is that after that age, language learning has to be contrived in certain ways.
It doesn't just happen in the same way that it does with little kids.
There's a whole other argument, a whole other debate and conversation we could be having about.
Do adults learn languages like kids?
Because you know, you see all these people recommending that people adults, should learn English, like children learn English.
And then other people are going, no, that's ridiculous.
Adults aren't children.
People should learn English by studying it.
It's not just exposure and all these.
And then you get the big, you know, language learning argument and discussion stuff.
That's not what we're talking about here.
In this episode we're just focusing on What happens with the kids when they're small and the importance of starting them with English at that age and sort of how that can actually be done.
Right.
I'd love my kids to learn English from the very beginning.
And I'd love to be able to talk to them in English and have a relationship with them in English.
But they might think, ah, but my English isn't good enough.
Now I've had comments from listeners saying that very thing, which is like I'd love to help my kids with their English, but I don't want to speak to them in English because I feel like my English isn't good enough.
I don't want to teach them bad English.
Yes, I hear you.
I hear what you're saying.
But if you think about it like this well, the first part of this is that if you think about how we learn languages, how we've learned languages since we were in caves, we've learned by hearing our parents and the people in our close surroundings speak it.
That is the way our brains have been wired to learn.
So if that is what we know to be true, which we do that language needs to be learned from the family or is best learned from the family, then imagine that you have an intermediate or above level.
Let's say and you say no, I don't want my kids to hear me speaking English.
I don't want them to pick up to get my pronunciation or get my my bad grammar, or I'm mixing up vocabulary.
Well, if you didn't use English with them, that's not.
That's much worse than using English with them, because using English with them, you're giving them a gift.
You are exposing them.
And when we talk about linguistic development, it's all about exposure.
So the hours or minutes that your child is going to listen to a language is.
So the more exposure that they're going to get to English, the better.
Absolutely, that is 100% true.
The more exposure, the better.
And at this stage, you're not trying to formally teach them the language.
You just want them to hear it.
You want them to listen to it and for them to understand that English is a positive thing.
It's a natural thing.
They see their parents speaking it and that's all.
Also a whole other debate that you can have about what is perfect English and what is.
That's a whole other thing.
But the fact is, and when I spoke to David Crystal about this, I asked him that question and he said well, just exactly the same thing you just said, which is that some English is definitely better than no English.
All those kids who don't get any exposure to English, they're just getting zero.
Whereas the kids who are being exposed to their parents speaking English as a second language.
The pronunciation is going to be different to how some native speakers pronounce or whatever.
It might not be standard pronunciation, but it all contributes.
It all definitely helps to form foundations, which can be tweaked and corrected later.
But there's that... inherent sense of familiarity and fluency.
And you know that's very important.
Even if the language isn't sort of quote unquote perfect, it's still beneficial.
Yeah.
Exactly.
And actually this thing that you say about tweaking, I think is an important concept.
So tweaking, making small changes to language as you learn it, as you use it.
So in my family, like with me and my husband and my two boys, we decided that my husband is from here, from Barcelona, but we decided that our family language would be English.
He speaks quite good English.
So we decided that when we are together as a family, we always all speak English.
He speaks to them in English.
When they're alone.
When my husband's alone with the boys, he'll sometimes speak to them in Catalan, but they're used to hearing English.
But they hear some of his pronunciation, of course.
And the four-year-old.
And he was saying, book.
So a book, like a book, right?
To read.
And my mother said, it's book.
So just it's very slight pronunciation thing.
But he said, oh, book.
And now he pronounces it book.
It was just a small change.
And he doesn't look back to book.
It's now book.
To go from nothing to book would be a huge leap.
But going from book, what the pronunciation was, I'm not sure.
But to go from that to this Canadian version of book was only a small step.
Yeah.
Exactly.
The tweaking.
Tweaking as they go.
Okay.
So...
How?
How?
How should my listeners help their kids improve their English or learn English from an early age?
Well, there are three things that I recommend doing, and I talk about them as habits, specifically habits, because it's much easier to start doing something and building a habit than thinking about it as habits.
You becoming a teacher.
And I find a lot of people that I've talked to about this.
They feel that they feel very overwhelmed by it.
They feel very unsure of themselves.
So we talk about three different habits.
Okay.
Two of the habits require the parent to use the language actively.
So they need to produce the language.
The third is passive, but we'll get there.
So the first thing that I recommend doing is simply choosing a routine that you do with your child.
So this could be done with even a very small baby, right?
You could do this with a two week old baby, a two month old baby.
Imagine you're changing them.
You could just simply be talking to them about what's happening.
Okay.
And not worrying too much about what you're saying.
Just speak to them.
So you're changing their diaper, your nappy, sorry, diaper we say in Canada.
Yeah, nappy.
I don't want any of this diaper nonsense.
Thank you.
And you can be saying, oh, look at this.
I'm changing your diaper.
Oh, look at this toy.
Of course here it's a little bit more difficult if you don't have the vocabulary, but you can always look those things up on Google.
I mean, it's very easy to review the vocabulary, but you don't.
It needs to be approached like just a relaxed thing.
And the first time it probably will feel a bit strange to be speaking to your child and a language that's not your, your first language.
But then as you develop the habit if you always do this when you're changing them or you always do this during bath time, it starts becoming very natural, like any habit.
The first day that you go to the gym it feels very forced and difficult, but if you go all the time then it slowly starts feeling natural and not as difficult to do.
So that's the first one.
And it's also a great time to pause.
And instead of going through routines on autopilot and thinking about other things, doing other things, Magda Gerber, who is known for respectful interactions with infants and young children, say it's the best time to really connect with them.
So if you're able to just be totally present and, in this moment, use English with them, pay attention.
Be mindful to what's happening, looking around.
We know that little babies you know starting around well from the beginning, but especially at four months and above, they're just observing the world.
They're observing and taking in everything that they see, the colors, the feelings.
So if you can talk to them about those things, it's an amazing way to use language.
So, for example, you know, my son is about three months old now.
So when I give him a bath, I can say, OK, we're going to give you a bath now.
So I'm just running the water.
Splish, splash.
Can you hear that?
That's the sound of the water.
Oh, it's going to be nice.
I'm just making sure the temperature is right for you.
And then when you dip him into the bath, here we go.
Oh, can you feel that?
Oh, that's nice, isn't it?
You feel the water on your legs.
Yeah.
Splish, splash.
It's bath time.
You know, oh, you're waggling your legs.
That's not, oh, you're like a little frog, aren't you?
You know, that sort of thing.
That sort of thing.
It's like, okay, now let's get you dry.
Okay.
Oh, can you feel the towel on you?
All right.
He's three months old.
But I mean if your kid is one or two, I mean you've got stuff like at mealtimes or other times of the day.
At mealtimes, it's just stuff like, okay, it's time for dinner.
Are you hungry?
Would you like something to eat?
Are you thirsty?
Would you like some water?
That tastes nice, doesn't it?
Stuff like that.
Exactly, talking to them as you would in your own language about just things that are going on.
And doing it without being worried about making mistakes, it doesn't really matter.
Of course, you can always review the vocabulary later.
And we know for most kids well, for all babies up until a year and a half and for some kids it goes until later.
Like they're not going to reject you speaking in English.
They're not going to look at you and be like, who do you think you are speaking English to me?
That's not your language.
Of course, they're going to accept anything that you give them.
But when you have a little bit of an older child, say around two, three years old, if you wanted to start using English and you had never used it before, At first it's going to be different.
They're going to notice that you're using all of a sudden another language.
But they will accept it.
You're not going to force it on them.
Be like, listen to me speak English.
You sit there and listen to me speak English.
But you just approach it very playfully and fun.
A mealtime, hey, would you like to have a glass of water?
And they say, what was that?
You could say it again.
You could repeat it three times.
And then you could repeat it in your language.
And then your kid goes, no, no, no, it's water, not water.
What is, what's water?
Mummy, what's water?
It's water.
That's amazing that you say that because water, I know that's just the way I pronounce it.
But my son, the four-year-old, the first time I said it, no, no, no, it's not agua, it's water.
And he was like, water.
I'm like, what?
Is that what I sound like?
He was like, war.
I'm like, no, no, that's not what I sound like.
But I'm afraid it is.
I'm afraid it is.
Water, water.
A bottle of water, please.
Oi, mum, get us a bottle of water.
Who's been speaking Cockney English to him?
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Did I talk too much?
Why can't I just let it go?
I was thinking so much.
Take a breath.
You're not alone.
Let's talk about what's going on.
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Anyway, I have a friend who speaks Cockney English, good friend.
And when we left his house, my son said, why does Simon speak French?
I was like, no, he speaks English.
He said, no, no, no, he doesn't.
I don't know why he thought French.
It was just like to say a foreign language.
Right, just something so foreign.
Just something just so foreign.
Yeah.
But anyways, so it's using English during mealtimes.
And back to this point about a little bit older age children, you know, over two.
If they do have a certain a bad feeling or they ask you to stop speaking English, which is totally possible, they would because it's different and usually kids don't like things that are different.
They like things that are the same and follow the routine and order.
You just say okay and you stop speaking English that day and you try again the next day and eventually they will become used to it.
Again, if you make it a routine, if you make it a habit, they eventually will become used to it.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
But, of course, starting from the very beginning, when they don't even realize, when they're not even really conscious of it, they won't notice.
Yeah.
It's just a natural part of their environment.
Exactly.
Okay.
So that's habit one.
Okay.
What about habit two?
So just to finish the habit one part, there's two different ways you could use English at home.
You could use it with like a time and a place method.
We just talked about one specific routine.
You could also have it be one parent, one language, which any of your listeners who are interested in this topic of bilingualism will have heard before, that one parent uses English and one parent doesn't.
These are just options.
Basically, the most beneficial thing to do if you want to use English at home is kind of to have a certain time or a certain person where the child can kind of start categorizing when the language is used.
If that makes sense.
So they know what to expect because they like to know what to expect.
OK, so then moving on to the next habit, the next habit would be using English during playtime.
OK, so this is the time, of course, when your children are playing.
And there are two different types of play that we could think about.
We can think about like child led play.
So this is like the unstructured, uninterrupted play where they are putting trains together or playing in the kitchen or doing whatever your child likes to do.
And You get down to their level and you just start making comments or mimicking their actions or even repeating, if they're at a level of their own linguistic development in their own language, where they're speaking to themselves, which often children do in their native language.
You could just repeat what they say in English.
And you're kind of, some people call it like sports casting.
So you're sports casting what they're doing.
But you're just doing it in English.
But you're not leading the play.
You're not taking over what they're doing.
You're just letting them play.
And you're just kind of being there like a sports caster.
And so he's got the ball and he's running down the hallway and he crosses the ball and smash.
The plates have fallen off the table and his mother's come in and she's not happy.
Look at that expression on her face.
And he's been given the red card straight to bed with no story.
Not exactly like that, I guess, but...
I knew you were going to take that one.
I knew you were going to take that one.
We think, like, let's say if my daughter's on the floor of her bedroom, she's got her magnet toys.
I could say, oh, yeah, so you're building a castle.
Wow, that's great.
Okay, yeah, put one.
Are you going to put the red one on top of the green one?
Okay, I see you've made a roof.
That's nice.
So what are you going to do now?
I see you're putting a spire on it.
Okay.
Oh, that's terrible.
That's an awful car.
That's terrible.
What are you doing?
That's rubbish.
No, don't do that.
But you don't judge.
You don't take over their play.
Absolutely.
No judging.
So I was joking there when I started criticising.
You don't do that.
You just simply describe what they're doing.
Just commentate and describe what they're doing.
Yes.
I mean you can also yeah, you can like try not to intervene and direct their play for it to truly be like child led free play.
But just, yeah.
Oh, look at that.
There goes the train under the bridge.
Ah.
And then the child says, for example, in Spanish, they could say, ah, el bus.
And you say, ah, look, there goes the long yellow bus up the hill.
So you're taking their limited vocabulary and you're just going with it and expanding on it.
And then the next type would be adult-led play.
And I think this is often what people think of when they think of using English at home with their kids, because it does require a little bit more thought and planning.
It's not as spontaneous as what we've talked about in the other habits.
But of course, you could go in and lead an activity.
So you could do, for example, a role-playing game, like playing kitchen or doctor and you're kind of leading the play.
Okay, let's play doctors.
And okay, I'm going to be this doctor and you're going to be the patient.
Or you could even do a puppet show where you're, of course, this is with a bit older children, but you're making characters with this is this puppet and this puppet says to that puppet.
Really, the choice of the game that you are going to lead will depend on their, their developmental stage and what they're interested in.
Something that I'm interested in and I try to force on my children is yoga.
Oh, yeah.
And there's this awesome channel called Cosmic Yoga.
Oh, yeah, yeah, of course, with Jamie.
Yeah, Yoga with Jamie.
Yes, it's...
Yeah.
So good.
And she does like, OK, you know, put your hands up over your head and now you're a rocket.
And she does very simple but descriptive, fun classes.
It would be great for kids, you know that are starting with English as well, because they're watching it and they're moving.
And it's something really fun to do together.
Yeah, my daughter has been doing yoga with Jamie for years.
Well, I say years, years like decades, but years they go way back.
Yeah yeah, my daughter and Jamie yeah, they've been hanging around now.
So yeah, Jamie's great and she's.
All her yoga videos are like based around different themes, so there's a Star Wars one, there's a Frozen one, there's Pokemon ones, there's you know, we're going on a bear hunt one and all sorts of things.
Yeah, She actually does one.
If there are any kids out there or parents who are interested in space, where she has an astronaut on and the astronaut, she does yoga in space.
And it's so cool because you know, you really think about it, but like actual space in a spaceship.
So she's doing yoga and she talks.
Yeah, so she talks about it.
Because to do yoga, of course you need gravity, like you know, to do tree pose, to stand on one leg and put your foot, like in the inside of your calf or in the inside, you need gravity to hold all those things together.
But so it's just cool, and then she does yoga in zero gravity, Really.
The astronaut.
Jamie doesn't go to space.
That would be cool.
Oh, right, right.
She's awesome.
She's awesome, but they haven't sent her to space to film her YouTube video.
Or just you know the way that we send things into space.
When they get, you know when something's really good, ultimately we just send it into space.
Like, okay, this is the best that humans have got to offer.
We'll send it into space so that if aliens, they'll be like hmm, aliens discover humanity because we sent them.
Beethoven and yoga with jamie okay, you get an idea of the sort of thing you'll know.
You'll know when you've made it, when you get sent into space to be discovered by aliens.
Hopefully luke's english podcast will end up in space at some point.
They'll just fire me out into space, absolutely yes, you'll just be there in a pod just recording your episodes, exactly rolling around, zero gravity, i believe, sounds pretty good to me.
That's, that's what i'm hoping for.
I don't know what everyone, all the other english podcasts out there, what they're aiming for, but that's my objective to be fired out into space in a pod with a microphone.
Yeah okay, aim high, aim high, Aim high.
Yeah, very high in this case, all the way out of the atmosphere.
Right.
Anyway, enough nonsense.
So guided play, right?
So that's where you set up the game and create the conditions of the game.
In English, role-playing games and stuff like that, or doing yoga in English.
Yeah.
Exactly.
And it's important to say that In all parts of the language journey with your children, like for people who are non-native speakers, who are using English as their second language, and also for people like us where, you know, we speak English as our first language and we use it with our children.
You're never, I don't like to say never, but they can't say anything wrong.
Like if my child says, ah, no, it's not the bus, it's el bus.
That's not wrong.
I would never like, no, no, we're speaking English now.
You just kind of roll with it.
Yeah.
Wrong.
Go to your bedroom.
Yeah.
But we're already in the bedroom.
Okay, stay here.
It's really like anything, anything goes.
Like, it's just, I can't, I can't say enough.
Like, it's just not rigid.
It's just very fluid.
And you just repeat now.
You just, oh yeah, the bus is, the yellow bus is going up the hill.
You know, you just roll with it.
It's really not complicated.
It's not rocket science.
We're not going to space as much as we would like to.
It's just playtime and relaxed.
And you also want to be relaxed about it because you are going to transmit that to them.
So if you're relaxed, having fun, they're going to like it.
They're going to develop a good bond, a good relationship with English.
And that is the goal at this young age.
Because I mean, perhaps understandably, a lot of people when they think about sort of teaching English or helping people learn English, including kids, your mind goes back to the school situation and that goes back to being corrected.
It goes back to being rules and discipline and red marks on pieces of paper, red pen with a big cross and then an unhappy face or having to see the teacher and failing and passing.
And this is often the mental space issue. in which learning English happens for many people.
But what you're saying is that it doesn't have to be that way.
In fact, that doesn't help, really.
And the best way if you're doing it at home with kids is to just, you know, have no rules or boundaries.
It's playtime in English.
Exactly.
And I would go further than that, Luke, to say, imagine two scenarios.
One scenario where we have a parent who has, we'll say, imperfect English.
They speak English, but it's not native level English.
They use English at home during a routine, during playtime, you know, from a young age.
And then we have another child who goes to a organized activity outside of the house.
With a great teacher who sits all the kids in a circle and does a workbook and they're coloring pages.
In English.
In English.
Yeah.
But the kid doesn't enjoy it.
Or it's just one hour a week, one hour or 45 minutes.
That's very little exposure.
I would say it is far more superior the parent who's using English at home than sending them to this type of activity.
Of course, if your child likes this activity and you're doing it in addition to have more exposure to English, that's great.
But what I would like people to hear is that your language abilities and using it at home, and already the bond and the special relationship that you have with your child, makes it the ideal place to start learning English from a young age at home.
Does that make sense?
Yeah, absolutely, yeah.
I mean, that's not to say that an English course in a place, in a school or an English club or something, that those things can't be great experiences, and valuable experiences too.
It's just not as black and white as saying.
English learning for kids has to happen in an institutional environment.
It can be extremely effective in the home environment as well.
Even if English is not your first language, just doing these things and establishing English in a habitual way from a very early age can be tremendously effective as well.
And you know just, I suppose it's just trying to change maybe some attitudes that people have about how and where and with who English can be learned for children.
Exactly.
Any other habits that you want to talk about?
Well, the last part that we could talk about with playtime is, of course, using songs.
And this also kind of leads to the next point, which is stories, using stories.
So songs are obviously incredible because kids will sing them.
You start singing them.
You can be funny and silly.
There's obviously a lot of different, you know, Super Simple Songs is a great YouTube channel.
Super Simple Songs on YouTube.
Exactly.
Super simple songs.
They have classic songs.
So like, you know, the wheels on the bus go round and round.
They also have original songs that they write themselves that are funny and goofy.
And as the channel says, they are very, you know, they're super simple.
So they're great to use.
So I definitely recommend that channel.
And then the last one and my favorite is stories.
Obviously, I have a podcast called Into the Story.
I love stories.
I live stories.
So starting with books.
I mean, books are an incredible way to just start using English.
If you can get an English book, if you can buy it, go to the library, it's perfect.
You can also use books in your own language and just you know, normally it's like there's a red square or very simple things that you just translate the story.
You just say what you're looking at and describe it.
Kids don't read, of course, until after usually this age group.
So stories are brilliant.
And to bring me to the last part, the last habit, it is podcasts.
Of course, people listening to podcasts know that podcasts are amazing for your kids, and perhaps even you have listened to Luke's English Podcast when your kids were around.
Oh, really?
Their ears perked up?
Or maybe not.
Maybe not your podcast.
Well, they do.
They do.
They do.
Actually, I get you know regular correspondence from listeners and some people are like oh yeah, you know, we listen to the podcast with the kids.
And I was like, oh, really?
You mean you listen to that one episode I did?
The one about the, you know, that dodgy, you know, like you listen to the swearing episode?
You listen to that with your kids?
Yeah.
That's the one you chose.
Did you really?
You notice, when kids listen to anything, they'll eventually repeat it or even ask like hey, what does this mean?
They could even ask it in their own language, right?
What does this word mean?
Or what did he say?
Or why did you laugh?
When they have English in their linguistic landscape when they have English, they can hear it around them they will naturally develop an interest in them.
And there are so many podcasts that are designed for kids.
Now, most of them are designed for kids who speak English as their first language, so they can be a little bit more difficult.
Right.
But there are some that are a little bit simpler and enjoyable, quite frankly, for you to listen to as well.
Like I'm not talking about putting earphones on your kid, pressing play and walking away.
I'm talking about.
You know you're in the car or you're making food and hey, let's put on this story.
Now, specifically, stories are great for kids because they just think in stories.
They think in narrative where there's a character involved.
They follow that character through an event that happens and then there's a resolution.
It's very easy for them to follow that format, compared to another podcast for kids.
Perhaps that's talking about science or some sort of facts, where there is no narrative.
There is no central character.
So I really do recommend stories because they can listen to it, they can follow it and they can listen to it several times, which kids normally like listening to.
You know, I don't know how many times you've watched Frozen or whatever your daughter's favorite movie is, but too many times.
Far too many times, Brie.
Yeah.
And there's a podcast that I think it's by the BBC, that maybe they don't do it anymore, but it's Listen and Play.
Yeah, BBC's Listen and Play.
They also have Story for Kids or Playtime.
Lingo Kids has a podcast as well.
So there's options that are really good.
So if you're a listener of podcasts and you're looking for a way to start using English at home, I would just pick a podcast and see if you're interested in it.
Start listening to it around your kid.
That's a really great place to start.
Yes.
Yeah, I do listen to stories with my daughter when it's the two of us having dinner together.
For example, if her mum's got something on in the evening and it's just the two of us having dinner.
Obviously now the little boy as well is there, taking it all in.
He's got no idea what's going on, but he listens to the story too.
And yeah, we sit there and while we're having dinner, we'll listen to stories.
A story we discovered on a podcast recently which is, if I can just find it here in Pocket Casts, Super Great Kids Stories.
Super Great Kids Stories.
And so we've been listening to that.
And we sit there and we kind of listen to the story together.
And when something happens...
We kind of look at each other like, oh, like that.
It's quite funny to see.
She'll look at me, you know kind of obviously listen to the story together, comment on things that happen.
And it's just great to just like, when something happens, to see her look over at me and we both kind of share a look like, oh wow, that's interesting, isn't it.
Oh, wow, that's scary.
Yeah, exactly.
And in that way, by co-listening, so by listening together with them, you...
It makes it a much more interactive experience.
You're both experiencing the same events in the stories.
You're both imagining probably similar things.
So it makes it a nice experience to share together.
Plus, sometimes you can just, you know, pause and say, you know, did you understand what that meant?
Or do you know what that word is?
And just, you know, just to clarify, you know, in case they need something to be explained.
Because sometimes in some stories, it's like one word that gets used a lot.
If it's like an object or a particular feature of the story.
And you know you can just be there to just make sure they understand what that is, you know, without interrupting the story too much.
Exactly.
Exactly.
Do you have any encouragement for my listeners at the end here?
Well, I guess I would say I mean, I've said throughout our talk today that this is something like you can't do it wrong.
Like the only thing you could actually do wrong was kind of what we joked about, was kind of criticizing and say no, you said it wrong or no, you have to use this word.
Or just not doing it at all.
Or just not doing it at all.
And because you have a level of English and hiding that from them.
This is a part of yourself that you have to share and would be very beneficial to share.
So not using it.
That would be a mistake, in my opinion, if you really do value them having English in their lives.
I think it's just such an amazing tool.
So too much rigidity.
So being too rigid, being too strict is the enemy of a good habit.
Okay.
So what does this mean?
We talked about these different habits today.
If you're going to be too rigid, if you're going to be too strict about it.
We I always speak in English during bath time.
I always speak, you know, on Sundays during playtime in English.
If you're going to be that strict about it, that's a good way to not develop a habit being more relaxed about it being well.
If I think of it and it happens, then I'll use English during bath time.
And eventually it'll feel more natural and you'll start doing it more.
But if you're too strict, then it's probably not going to become a habit.
They've done studies with this.
People who go to the gym the people who are like I always go to the gym at this time in the morning when they're so rigid.
It doesn't allow space in their life to you know, for things to happen, which things always happen.
So when they say, well, if I don't go at this time, then I go at that time.
And if I don't go this day, it's fine.
I'll go the next day.
So being just relaxed about it.
Don't be too rigid, but be consistent, of course.
And just start with something small.
Don't don't say I'm going to speak while you can, but don't imagine that you're going to all of a sudden start speaking in all the routines in English.
You can just start with a song.
You can start with cosmic kids.
You can start by listening to a podcast.
So starting with a very small thing and slowly start opening that English time at home.
And I think that is the best place to start.
Just start at all.
The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago.
The second best time is now.
That's an old Chinese proverb, but it's just to say that you know, start today and start with something small.
Yes.
Lovely.
Thanks for all the advice.
I'm saying that on behalf of my listeners.
Absolutely.
And myself as well.
But great.
Okay.
So listeners, again, Into the Story is Bree's podcast.
And you can go there and check it out if you want to hear that story of my dramatic adventure in Paris.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
You can see what happened.
It's a family friendly story.
It's a family friendly story.
They can listen.
I just about managed to make it family friendly.
It was borderline.
Some of the things that happened in the story could have been a bit more explicit, but I managed to make it family friendly.
So, yeah.
And hopefully you'll find it funny, everyone.
Yeah.
And all of our stories are family friendly and it's something you could listen to with kids if you wanted.
But we are also working on a story, a podcast, meant to be listened to with families and with kids, to be engaging for kids.
And just for what we've talked about today, that families can enjoy listening to it together and kids enjoy it and it's their story.
First experience with English.
So if you do, we will be announcing that on our podcast at some point this fall, winter.
So if people want more information about that, then they can listen to Into the Story.
Okay, fantastic.
Details in the show notes, everyone.
Okay.
All right.
Well, Brie, thank you.
Brilliant.
Thank you.
And nice to meet you.
Nice to speak to you.
Nice speaking to you.
So there you go, listeners.
That was my conversation with Brie Acey.
Again, her podcast is called Into the Story.
And yeah, if you check it out, you'll be able to listen to that story that we talked about.
The one where I have to go on a mission through Paris, like I'm Liam Neeson or something, a dramatic mission in order to rescue something, in order to save, basically save the world.
That's the best way I can describe it.
And if that does sound amazingly fascinating, then obviously just check out the episode into the story.
It'll be the most recent episode.
I don't know which number that is, but anyway, check out Into the Story and you'll be able to find it.
Okay, as I said, links for that will be in the description of this episode.
Do you know what that means, in the description?
Most of you are like, yeah, yeah, of course, yeah, into the description.
Yeah, of course we know what that means.
And there are some people going, what?
What does he mean, in the description?
Well, if you're listening to this in a podcast app, right?
You've got obviously the play button, which becomes a pause button when you've pressed it once.
And then you should also have somewhere in there show notes or episode notes or episode description.
It's a paragraph of text, which explains what the episode is about.
And that's where that's really an important thing for podcasters the show notes or the description right, right.
Because that's where we can put bits of text and also links and things.
So if you ever hear a podcast to say link is in the description or check the show notes for the link or something, then that's in your podcast app where you're listening to the episode.
I don't need to explain this, do I?
Do I?
I don't.
99% of you are like, yep, fine, got it.
No problem.
We understand that.
We understand podcasts.
We know what this is.
We know what's going on.
We know what we're doing.
We're normal.
We are capable of understanding.
It's a podcast, for goodness sake, we understand.
And then there's one person like I'm just on the internet and I press the thing and then a man started talking and I don't know how to stop him.
Uh, I sure I'm learning English.
Uh, I mean, I don't have children, but if I did, I would certainly speak English to them.
Uh, and yeah, it's very good for my English but um, I really uh, this is driving me insane and I need it to stop.
Uh, well for that one person, you know what I'm going to do?
I am actually going to stop now.
Yeah.
I'm going to stop the episode.
The episode is going to stop here.
It is.
Yeah.
In the last step, I nearly started a new thing there.
The How many times do I do this where I say, okay, that's it.
That's the end.
The episode's going to end.
And then, hey, I carry on talking for a bit more because I just can't stop in the last episode.
By the way everyone, thank you so much for comments and messages and responses to the episodes I make in the last.
What is it?
It feels like...
My life has gone into fast forward.
Well, coincidentally enough, since the beginning of July when Child 2 was born.
But everything seems to have gone into fast forward and I'm still trying to catch up with my own life.
But certainly the podcast is going well as usual.
And, you know, I pump out the episodes.
And of course, people reply and comment.
And sometimes those comments are very sort of, what's the word for it?
Very, very profound.
Profound?
Profound.
Some of them, many of them are not profound at all. of course, which is fine.
But some of those comments are clearly very carefully considered and contain responses and reflections that you know are quite touching.
I mean, I've said this many times before.
Often I find myself reading comments and emails and messages and things when I'm like doing something else.
I'm in the queue at the supermarket and we're kind of like scrolling through these Comments that people have really put their heart and soul into in response to some thing that I've said.
For example, in the last episode, when I talked about my friend who I worked in the restaurant with and the friend of mine who died fairly recently.
I couldn't attend the funeral, unfortunately.
But strangely, I was able to watch the funeral through an internet live stream, which is a very strange experience.
It was very odd.
I was there on my own.
You know, it was during the daytime, so I wasn't like with other people.
I just sat and watched it on my own and watched the funeral and saw the service, the speech and certain guests came up and made speeches.
And I recognized people and there were references to things that I knew well.
It was very odd experience experience to grieve on my own, to attend a funeral but not to be with the people there.
Anyway, so I talked about my friend Paul who died.
And, you know, people wrote nice responses to that.
So thank you for your responses.
And thanks for just comments that people write generally, and other stuff as well.
Of course, you know, people send donations to help support the show, which is, you know, incredibly generous, and I appreciate it very much indeed.
So thanks, you know, for all those things.
Yeah, I was going to say in the last episode I had a bit of a sore throat.
Well, that developed into full-blown throat, a full-blown throat infection, and i got tonsillitis, which is a thing that afflicts me quite a lot.
I had to get antibiotics, feeling much better now but uh, i did lose my voice after doing that episode.
I don't know.
Do you, do you care?
I don't know.
Does it matter?
Why am i telling you this?
I don't know, just for continuity, i suppose Just to let you know what happened after the last episode.
I don't know.
Okay, it's probably time to stop.
I want to say thanks again to Bree for her contribution to this episode.
She prepared quite a lot of stuff in advance for this one, thinking carefully about all the things she was going to say.
You know about the ways that children develop, with their languages, specific habits.
Those specific habits speaking English during routines, speaking English at playtime, and then using stories to encourage your children.
Check the page for this episode on my website for some more notes in relation to the things you heard today.
I look forward to your comments and things like that.
Okay, right, time for me to stop now.
And I really am going to stop.
Premium subscribers, new content coming soon.
I'm working on it, I promise.
Slaving away.
I'm not slaving because I do get paid for it, but it's just an expression.
I'm working hard, coming up with some new stuff.
It's going to be absolutely thick with vocabulary, just tons of... big chunks of vocabulary.
Yum, yum, yum, yum, yum.
It's going to be a feast.
Your vocab is going to expand so much.
You're going to need a new, I don't know what, you're going to need a new thing to carry it all.
A new bag.
Get a new, quick, get yourself a new bag.
Buy a whole new house or with a big basement because you're going to need to.
You know, need plenty of space to keep all that vocab.
Or just cram it all into your head.
Buy a new head just in preparation for the new episode that's coming soon.
Get an upgrade for your head.
It's going to be worth it.
It's going to be worth it, I promise, because you're going to get loads of you're just going to get so much vocab and it's going to be fascinating.
I'm not being sarcastic.
I'm not.
I really I know I have the tendency to have a slightly ironic tone in my voice sometimes, just because I enjoy life and there's always like a slight joke going on.
But really, really, I've worked hard on that on this upcoming.
Okay.
All right.
Okay.
Okay, I'm going to stop.
I am going to stop now.
Anyway, premium content coming soon, so hold on for that.
New episode will arrive next week.
Okay, have a lovely morning, afternoon, evening, or night, wherever you are in the world.
Please be safe.
Please be excellent to each other, if that is possible.
Hopefully it is.
Okay, I really am going to stop now.
Take care.
Speak to you next time.
Goodbye.
Bye.
Bye.
Bye.
Bye.
Bye.
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