Swahili For Your Juniors
As early as four months, infants can determine the differences of basic sounds from one another. They know that a clap is different from a spoken word. It means that they will be able to learn essential words by copying them from another person. When babies reach their sixth month, they start to mumble words, and it is a good sign that your child is learning a language.
All children have promising potential when it comes to learning. Moreover, it is suggested that children should be taught more about languages. This is because learning a second language at an early age can boost a child's problem-solving capabilities, critical thinking, focus, multi-tasking and a lot more beneficial traits. It is recommended for children to learn languages to feed their brains.
Let me tell you a secret about Swahili. Did you know that, for children, learning Swahili is beneficial for them mentally and personally? Aside from gaining another experience, there are more reasons for them to learn. This article will provide you with the details, importance and advantages of learning another language for children and why it should be Swahili.
The Swahili Language
Swahili is an excellent native language used by people as a national language in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and the Democratic Republic of Congo. The language originated from traders from Arab countries contacting people from East Coast Africa. After many years, Arabs influenced the Swahili people to use a language known as the lingua franca.
In a study, it was found that Swahili is the easiest and fastest language to understand for people who are English speakers. It is straightforward to read in the written format, and it has no complicated accents or lexical tones. With only 24 letters in the alphabet, Swahili for children and Swahili for juniors can be easily taught and learned.
Importance of Learning Swahili for Juniors
Languages play a considerable role in our lives. Learning Swahili is just as crucial as learning another language. Even if you are an English speaker, Swahili for children can still be a good source of knowledge that a child can take into adulthood. Let me share the importance of Swahili lessons for children.
6 Tips in Teaching Swahili For Juniors
- 1Use the cycle ‘read, write, speak and repeat’. This applies in any language you are teaching your children. You can give them daily mental exercises that will make them repeat the cycle over and over again until they remember the language. For example, you can make them read the same content, write the same content, speak the same content and repeat. That way, your child will have familiarity and development in learning the language.
- 2Learn Swahili through drawings and illustrations. This is very effective for children who barely have a grasp of the language. It could be that the child is English-speaking or another nationality. However, when you teach your child through drawings and illustrations, they can understand more clearly and remember it faster. When using this technique, make sure that your child is focusing and giving attention to the illustration.
- 3Converse using Swahili. Using Swahili for juniors as your language for an hour or so with your child can help them learn ways of speaking the language and also provide familiarity with it. Furthermore, you can do tricky games to keep your children entertained throughout the learning period. You should teach the language as if it is fundamental, and never teach it as if it is difficult even for you.
- 4Have a ‘new word a day’ goal. This routine is simply to accumulate all the gathered knowledge while learning a new word each day. It will be helpful to set a goal when studying a language because it gives more motivation, and you can also keep track of progress. Furthermore, knowing that you learned something new today can make you inspired to learn more tomorrow.
- 5You dictate, the child writes. Now, this may seem a little incomprehensible. However, all that this means is that you dictate it and make your child write it. That way, they will have vast development in writing the language. Writing it is equivalent to learning it.
- 6Try to make your child translate. As easy as one, two and three. Ask your child to translate simply words that are too complex in Swahili. That way, your child will be forced to think of the correct translation, thus helping them to remember. It is essential to be consistent with your child's learning routine.
Children and Language
Children must know the basics from scratch. These are writing, reading and speaking. However, as they grow older, they need to have an upgraded knowledge about the language. What if they have already mastered their mother tongue? Then learning a new language should be the answer. Swahili lessons for children, besides being easy to understand, are a self-investment for children towards their future communication.