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Children come into this world with brains wired to learn language. Researchers have documented that even the youngest baby's babble is an attempt at speech.

The earliest babbling sounds a baby makes span the sounds in all human language. As the months progress, the child's repertoire of babbling sounds decrease, and the baby shows a preference for the sounds made in his own language. All of this is happening during the first year of life!

English is a relatively difficult language to learn. Children in the first few years of life are paying attention to the rules of language and grammar. A toddler will very likely say "mouses" instead of "mice," because she has learned and is applying the rule "add an 's' to make a word plural." English has many exceptions to its rules, and the same toddler will have to learn "mice," "geese," etc.

Child development experts recommend against correcting toddlers. The mistakes they make are developmentally appropriate, and constant correction is much more likely to damage their self-esteem than teach them anything.

As a baby, my eldest sister managed to climb out of her crib and bump her head. This resulted in my sister having some problems with language development. My mother followed the advice of the pediatric experts back then thoroughly: every time my sister spoke, my mother chose one mistake, and gently made her repeat the correction three times. Today, my sister speaks well and has earned a good education.

I certainly don't recommend doing that with a normal child. But for my mother, old habits died hard (or not at all.) While my other siblings and I were never forced to repeat a corrected mistake three times, my mother retained some of her behaviors.

By the time we were in school, if we made a mistake when we spoke my mother would simply say it correctly. Then, the conversation would move on. We grew up like this. All my siblings and I had to do in English class was listen to our mother's voice in our heads. And we all consistently had near-perfect English test scores.

The lessons learned here, and the keys to helping your own child learn English, are simple:

1 - A child's brain is wired to learn language. The more a child is exposed to correct English, the better he will do.

2 - Every time your child speaks, if she makes a mistake, simply repeat it correctly. For example:

Child: "Her and me are gonna go now."

You: "She and I, dear. Where are you going?" She may not acknowledge the correction, but she heard and will remember it.

3 - Keep your voice quiet, gentle, and most important of all, non-judgmental.

4 - It bears repeating: We human beings evolved to learn language. Children are designed to pick up, understand, and develop the ability to use language from what they hear. The more a child is exposed to correct English, the better he will do.

Learn more about this author, B. Taylor.
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