Teaching methods

[Litchick]

My DCs have asked me to teach them various things over the summer vacation which started last week.
I am happy to do this but wanted some/any advice from parents and teachers on methodology.

In particular, does one move on before a core element has been fully grasped? Or does one keep at it, at the risk of boredom?

Many thanks.

what do they want you to teach them?

and also how old are they?

I ask: what do they need to learn? How might they learn this most effectively?

They'd like to improve their french and possibly begin Spanish.
There has also been talk of the guitar and tennis.
They are ten.

I'm happy to give it all a go, but wondering when one moves on iyswim.

I'd say at 10 they're old enough to manage their own learning IYSWIM, so you could get some books/other resources, work through them together and they'd tell you if they were getting bored.

At that age I'd do 20 mins on one thing/one activity. Certainly with languages it's a drip-drip-drip effect. So if you just tried to teach - say - past tense of irregular verbs until "it had been fully grasped", you would all go completely bonkers. Just do a bit at a time.

How much French/spanish do they know already?
This site is good for reinforcement of vocab/concepts they've learned.

Having said all that, I don't really 'direct' any learning in the holidays, we certainly don't do anything formal. (boys are 11 and 13). I think they need a break from all that.

Sounds great!
Start at the library maybe?

Get out some French films or do a let's-all-apeak-French-at-dinner-time or something. Agree learning doesn't have to be formal.

Do you know how to do all the above? It might be nice (if you want to) to try and learn the guitar (for example) all together - showing how you make mistakes etc.

I can't teach my children languages because my pronunciation is beyond awful. They learn from native speakers at school, and I encourage them to do the shopping and stuff when we are on holiday. They have a more limited vocab but a much better accent than I.

Are you very proficient at the activities? OTherwise I'd just practise with them a lot, and maybe look at coaching?

I'd say guitar is pretty hard to teach yourself, it'd be worth getting lessons. Some places do group classes which would be cheaper.

For the languages I'd suggest they watch half an hour a day of kids programming/cartoons in the target language, you should be able to watch streamed french/spanish tv online.

I'm trying to learn Arabic and watching Arabic dubbed Charlie and Lola really helps!

could you look into getting dual language story books? I have some although they'd be too young for 10yo, but they have English along the top and French along the bottom.

Thank you everyone - some fabulous ideas here.
I can speak French and Spanish and play the guitar...but am rusty at all three.
A good chance for us to leran together perhaps.