BJU Press Blog

Jenna

Why Is Learning a Foreign Language Important?

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Unless you’re fluent in a foreign language or studied one in college, teaching a foreign language may be a bit of a daunting task. You might be wondering if it’s really worth it. Here are some preliminary questions to consider as you think about teaching your child a foreign language.

  • Why should my child learn a foreign language?

Many states require at least one year of foreign language study for high school graduates, and many colleges require foreign language credits for admission. State requirements aside, mastering a foreign language can open whole worlds of opportunity for your children—in ministry, in business, and in academics. Taking a year or two now to learn a language could potentially save your child some time in language school if your child is called to the mission field in a foreign country. In the more immediate future, studying a foreign language gives your child the opportunity to communicate—and potentially share the Gospel—with people they otherwise would not be able to talk to, not to mention that companies are always looking for people who can speak another language and that learning a new language often teaches you a lot about your own.

  • When should my child learn a foreign language?

God has designed us to be capable of learning entire languages in just a few years when we’re young. Children can become fluent in a language without bothering with grammar or memorization. I’ll always remember the story of how one of my roommates learned Spanish. Her parents didn’t speak to her in Spanish. She learned it when she visited her grandmother in Mexico.

The younger the child, the easier it is for him to learn a new language. But older children benefit from learning a second language since they must spend more time focusing on grammar, vocabulary, and thinking in new ways, which are skills we don’t pick up if we learn languages as children. These skills are also highly valuable for grammar-based skills such as reading and writing.

  • What language should my child learn?

If you live in a community with a large immigrant population, teaching your child that language might give him an opportunity to practice with native speakers and to reach neighbors who are not yet familiar with English. Not only that, but language studies are also almost always accompanied by culture studies, which may spark an interest in going on a summer missions trip to a country that speaks the language your child has studied. Even studying a dead language such as Latin has benefits. A large portion of the English language has roots in Latin-based languages (e.g., French, Spanish, and Portuguese). Studying Latin can answer a lot of the questions we have about English.

  • How could I teach a foreign language?

You can enlist the help of a native speaker to model pronunciation, and you can find books and digital resources from the library or on educational apps. There are also many online learning platforms that teach your child a foreign language. Many colleges also offer summer programs for cultural immersion. BJU Press Distance Learning offers courses in Spanish and French for high school students. Each course provides a comprehensive study of the language by introducing vocabulary words, grammar instruction, pronunciation, listening, and writing projects.

View the elementary and secondary BJU Press foreign language subject kits!

Image Sources Maasi Mara by Svein-Magne Tunli/Wikimedia Commons/CC 4.0, Schloss Neuschwanstein, o’ahu & moloka’i by Christopher Michel/Wikimedia Commons/CC 2.0, Eiffel Tower by Wladyslaw/Wikimedia Commons/CC 3.0

3 Benefits of Writing Thank-You Notes

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After every special occasion involving gifts, there’s the inevitable round of thank-you cards. And while you do want to show gratefulness, they probably aren’t something you look forward to writing. After all, who has the time?

But, for your children, writing thank-you notes has a lot of value. They give your children a chance to. . .

(Image use) WP 12/2016

1. Practice Composition Skills

Thank-you cards give your children an opportunity to apply composition skills outside of their studies. If they follow the traditional “thank-you-for-your-gift-I-will-use-it-for . . .” format of thank-you notes, they’ll need to consider what the item is, how it’s typically used and for what, and who they’re writing to. All these considerations involve important writing skills. For instance, they might change their tone if they’re addressing a jovial uncle as opposed to an affectionate grandma.

2. Practice Writing and Grammar Skills

Thank-you notes also give your children an opportunity to practice handwriting and grammar skills. I don’t know about you, but I’ve never seen a thank-you card on college-ruled card stock. Writing cards encourages them to practice writing in a straight line, rather than letting their writing curve up or down. And since they won’t want to ruin the card by making too many mistakes, they’ll need to recall what they’ve learned about grammar and spelling to get it right the first time.

3. Practice Gratitude

But most importantly, thank-you notes are an opportunity to teach your children how to have a spirit of gratitude for the things they’ve been given. It’s a time to pause and appreciate the value of not only the gift but also the relationship with the giver. Even if they may not fully appreciate the gift itself, they can appreciate how much the giver means to them. After all, we as believers may never be able to fully comprehend the sacrifice Christ made for us, but we can love Christ because of the love He has shown us.

So encourage your children to take the time and write handwritten thank-you notes this year! At the very least, you can count them as extra credit later.

A Christmas Blessing for You

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This season is a time for many things. It’s a time for colored lights, sparkling trees, warm drinks, favorite songs, and—hopefully—gently falling snow.

But most importantly, this is the season to rejoice over the greatest blessing of all: Jesus Christ came to live among us. And through His sacrifice we have comfort and joy. Enjoy this Christmas ecard from all of us at BJU Press! (Download the image for your devices.)

BJU Press eCard for Blog 2016 Christmas

Image by Toa Heftiba

How to Build a Foundation for Independent Learning

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As much as you may love being a part of your child’s daily walk with God and carefully teaching him to seek God, it has always been your goal as a parent to carefully guide him to a place where he will be able to seek God on his own. You won’t always be standing over his shoulder and telling him what decisions he needs to make—as much as you might want to.

One day, your child’s relationship with the Lord will be his own responsibility. Education is no different. Just as you want your children to be capable of making right choices on their own, you want them to be able to learn on their own.

The process of developing a child into an independent learner  is sometimes called “scaffolding.” Often when you see a building under construction, you also see scaffolding around it. The wooden or metal framework supports the workers as they build the structure itself. For example, a bricklayer stands on a scaffold as he works on the exterior walls of a building. Though essential to the construction process, the scaffolding is only temporary.

Scaffolding in education works the same way. The teacher or parent provides support and makes connections to help learners continue making progress independently. Here are a couple of ways you can help your children become independent learners.

scaffolding

Help them make connections between old and new information

Have you ever told a funny story only to get to the end and realize that no one’s laughing? And then you remembered one small but crucial detail that changed everything about the story and made it funny?

One of the most important elements for any lesson is appropriate background information—which can sometimes be that small but crucial missing detail that keeps your children from understanding a new concept—like knowing a particular word’s definition before you can understand a scientific law. If they have all the information but still don’t understand, help them make the connection between what they already know and what they need to learn.

Sometimes, this part of scaffolding is as simple as reminding your children of the necessary information. Other times, it might mean referring back to previous discussions or asking a specific question about the missing information. You could also use graphic organizers, word webs, vocabulary lists, or even a metaphor to help make connections to ideas your children already understand, such as the comparison between your child’s growing faith and his education, or the funny story with the missing detail.

Help them discern how they learn best

Once your children have made the connection they were missing before, look back and see what methods helped them find it. Did a graphic organizer help them understand what a verb does? Or did using a word web help them brainstorm for a writing project? Teach them to look for those methods and apply them the next time they don’t understand a new concept.

Scaffolding isn’t a list of tools to use all the time. It’s a process for reaching the specific goal of making sure your children can learn independently. BJU Press Teacher’s Editions are full of resources that can help you scaffold your children’s learning.

Check out our TEs for science or English for some extra resources that will help your children become independent learners!

Writing and Grammar—Two Halves of One Whole

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For a busy parent, with everything that has to be completed in one homeschool day, teaching writing and grammar is a lot of work. It might seem to make more sense for you to handle these two related subjects as separate classes, or to spend one semester on grammar and the next on writing. So why does BJU Press put them together in the curriculum? Because writing and grammar are two halves of the same whole. Studying grammar helps your child become a better writer, while studying writing helps your child understand grammar. Here are a few reasons why.

Writing and Grammar—Two Halves of One Whole

  • Writing Skills and Grammar Skills

Writing assignments give your child a place to apply the grammar skills he’s just learned. It’s easy for a student to recognize and fix a problem he’s just learned about when looking at a list of sentences that follow a certain formula. The real test of understanding is expecting him to recognize and correct the problem in his own writing. But the reverse is also true—grammar skills improve writing. Writers need a certain level of grammatical understanding in order to be able to communicate effectively. For example, punctuation can change the meaning of a sentence entirely, as in the old joke about the trigger-happy panda that “eats, shoots and leaves.”

  • Analytical and Conceptual

People tend to be either analytical or conceptual. Grammar is an analytical skill, and children who favor logical processes tend to do well with grammar. On the other hand, writing is highly conceptual. There are fewer hard-and-fast rules for writing, and children who tend to be conceptual thinkers are likely to succeed in writing. Studying writing and grammar together gives both kinds of thinkers opportunities to use their strengths and improve their weaknesses.

  • Objective and Subjective

Since  writing is so conceptual, it can also be frustratingly subjective to assess, but this subjectivity leaves room for leniency in grading. When I was teaching writing, I would often ask myself whether lack of sentence variety or overuse of weak verbs really deserved a lower grade even though everything else was well done. But you know your own child’s strengths and weaknesses. If your child enjoys writing but doesn’t excel at spelling or grammar (the objective part), you can choose to value the writing section (the subjective part) of the rubric over the grammar section. If your child does well grammatically but doesn’t write as well, then you can choose to emphasize the grammar section of the rubric. This gives you the flexibility to evaluate your child based on his strengths rather than his weaknesses.

At BJU Press, we teach writing and grammar together all the way from grade 2 through grade 12. Check out our whole line of English-Writing and Grammar textbooks!