Primary – The Importance of Nurturing Your Mother Tongue at Home

Some families believe that placing their children in an English-medium school means that they should now be speaking only English to their children at home. In fact, the opposite is true. It is very important to nurture the Mother Tongue at home.

Why?

• Speak to your child in your Mother Tongue because you are the best model of that language for your child.
• Your child works and plays in an English speaking environment all day at school. They look forward to the comfort of speaking their Mother Tongue with family once they arrive home.
• Nurturing your Mother Tongue ensures that your child can continue to communicate with family members both near and far away.
• Developing a strong base in their Mother Tongue, allows children to effectively communicate and participate in certain cultural rituals and holidays.

How?

• Talk, Talk, Talk-in an era where there are many devices demanding our attention, try to turn them all off and talk to your child in their Mother Tongue. Share family stories, talk about their day at school or make dinner time a Mother Tongue only time.
• Make it fun-play games in your Mother Tongue, pose riddles and rhymes, teach your child traditional songs and plays and just generally enjoy sharing your language together.
• Make use of your environment-use the things around your home and in your neighborhood to teach your child new vocabulary in your Mother Tongue. Point things out and use the proper terms when discussing everything around you. Find colleagues, friends and neighbors who may speak your language. Encourage them to get together and nurture your common Mother Tongue.

Language is the basis of communication. Give your child the gift of their home language.