1 . Your child is unique, but what all children have in common is natural curiosity and an innate(天生的) ability to learn. Our brains are active all the time, and a baby’s brain is the busiest of all. Research has shown that babies begin to understand language about twice as fast as they actually speak it. By exposing children to other languages at an early age, you are giving them the opportunity to make use of their natural ability to hear and recognize the sounds of other languages, and their ability to make sense of what they are hearing.

Communication is something that children do to help them achieve something else, and they are unaware of the large amount of learning taking place. They take everything in through their senses, making connections between what they hear, see, smell, taste and touch. As long as we provide the right conditions, their learning and development will take place in a natural way.

In your child’s early years, the emotional environment is just as important as the physical environment. Children learn when they feel secure, happy, valued and listened to. This is central to any learning experience in a child’s early years, including learning an additional language. Your child has a trial-and-error approach to their development, and making mistakes is a valuable part of the learning process. Their progress isn’t held up by a fear of getting something wrong, and very young children are simply working their way towards getting it right.

The long-term benefits of learning another language go beyond being able to communicate with others. Studies suggest that children learning an additional language tend to score better on standardized tests because learning languages develops listening, observation, problem-solving and critical thinking skills. These are skills that are of lifelong benefit, both personally and professionally. Encouraging children in a love of language at an early age prepares them well for school and for life.

5 . Can you imagine there being a community where boys and girls growing up together can finally speak different languages? In Ubang Nigeria, it really happens. It’s not exactly clear what percentage of the words in the men’s and women’s languages are different, but there are enough examples to make sentences sound different when spoken by the opposite sex. For “clothing”, men use the word “nki”, while women say “ariga”; “kitchi” means tree for men, while women say “okweng”. These are not just some slight pronunciation differences, but totally different words. “It’s almost like two different lexicons (词汇集),” a language expert, Chi Chi Undle said. “There are a lot of words that men and women share in common, but there are others which are totally different depending on your sex. They don’t sound alike, and don’t have the same letters. They are completely different words.”

Interestingly, both men and women are able to understand each other perfectly in Ubang, as both boys and girls grow up around their parents and get to learn both languages, but by the age of 10, boys are expected to speak in the male tongue. It seems that there is a stage the male will reach and he discovers he is not using the rightful language. When he starts speaking the men’s language, you know the maturity is coming into him.

No one really knows how or why the double-language tradition of Ubang began. Chi Chi Undie believes the two languages are the result of a “double-sex culture” where men and women operate in two separate spheres (范围) and live in separate worlds that rarely come together. However, she admits this is a weak theory, as the double-sex culture is present in many parts of Africa, where there are no different languages for men and women.

Today, with English words constantly entering the lexicon of young Nigerians, Ubang’s two languages are in danger of being lost forever. Worse still, neither the male nor female language is written down, so they both rely on young people passing them down to the next generation.

6 . Although many Chinese students say that their knowledge of English grammar is good, most would admit that their spoken English is poor. Whenever I speak to a Chinese student they always say, “My spoken English is poor.” However, their spoken English does not have to remain “poor”! I would like to suggest that there may be some reasons for their problems with spoken English.

First, they fail to find suitable words to express themselves because of a limited vocabulary. Obviously the better answer is to expand their vocabulary. However, you can speak with a limited vocabulary, if your aptitude is positive. Others will follow you as long as you use the words that you know.

Second, they are afraid of making mistakes. Sometimes they make mistakes when they are speaking because they are shy and nervous. Yet students should remember that their goal should be FLUENCY (流利) NOT ACCURACY (准确性). Your aim in writing is to be accurate following the rules for grammar and using the right words and spelling them correctly. However, in speaking your aim is fluency. You want to get your message across, to talk to someone in English, as quickly and as well as you can, even though sometimes you may use a wrong word or tense, but it doesn’t matter because the person you are speaking to will understand you and take into consideration any mistakes he hears.

The third reason is that not enough attention is paid to listening. You have one mouth but two ears! All that hearing was necessary for you to start speaking.

Forth, most Chinese students are reactive (反应式的) rather than proactive (积极主动的) language learners. Instead of actively finding out opportunities (机会) to improve their spoken English, they passively wait for speaking opportunities to come to them and wonder why their English always remains poor. If you have this proactive outlook, then you will see English opportunities wherever you go.

If you do not use your English out of the classroom you will forget what English you know. Remember: USE IT OR LOSE IT! You can learn how to speak English better by speaking English more.

10 . My 12-year-old daughter, Lauren, came home from school yesterday, proudly waving her grade book to me. She had been awarded A-1 in most subjects such as mathematics, language arts and science—a great achievement! Then she sadly pointed out that her perfect score was damaged by a B-1 in French and a C-1 in Physical Education.

I asked her what the scores meant. She said that the letter showed the achievement(成绩) and the number showed the effort. That moment I realized that the grades were misleading. I reached out my hands and gave her a big hug and told her in my mind she had a perfect score. It didn’t matter that her grade in French was a “B”—the “l” showed that she had tried her best. That is something to make any parent proud.

Everybody is different. Everybody has different potential(潜能). Not all of us will become linguists(语言学家) or sports stars. But without 100％effort no potential can be achieved. If I see a salesperson fail at sales, the first thing I want to examine is the effort being put in. If there is a problem with effort, the salesperson has no future. But if I see a salesperson isn’t successful with l00％effort, he or she is worth my effort in helping. Maybe a bit of training or some advice from a more successful person will help. I know that 100％effort, focus in the right direction, will always bring a result whether that is an “A” or a “C”. As long as you make 100％effort, you are great.