The Melting Pot Approach is a gentle approach to beginning to learn languages in the home. This can be used with very young children. This is a non-traditional, family-centered approach.
Not everyone can afford a foreign nanny or has access to play mates fluent in the languages our children want to learn. Early exposure to the sounds of other languages introduces children to sounds they would not normally hear. Large hurdles in foreign language acquisition for adults include learning to hear sounds so that they can accurately reproduce them and learning a new visual alphabet.
Children growing up in seaport cities and multi-lingual neighborhoods are exposed to these elements of other languages, early on. These children pick up words and phrases and mingle these with their own language. As children grow older and have a desire to do the scholarly work of learning the grammar and reading classics in that language, the foundation will already have been put into place.
Natural Steps to Learning a Language as a Family:
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1. Hear the sounds of the target language and listen to natives in person or on recorded media (music, stories, and video).
2. Sing the children's songs, folk songs, and hymns in the target language.
3. Experience the culture of the target language--foods, music, games, stories, and attend festivals.
4. Learn to read and write the target language alphabet by sounds and sight.
5. Watch videos in the target language.​
6. Read children's books and poems in the target language.
7. Label objects around the home in the target language.​
8. Diglot Weave— Substitute words and phrases of the target language into English sentences, working towards using fewer English words, gradually building up to using the target language all morning, or at meals.
9. Invite people into your home that speak the target language with native fluency.
10. ​Memorize poems or quotes and act out fables in the target language.
11. Begin doing copy work or transcription in the target language of poems, scripture passages, and quotes etc.
12. ​Read the scriptures in the target language, looking up words that you do not know.
13. Study the Grammar of the target language last.
14. Write original thoughts in the target language etc.
Great resources is lds.org and the LDS Distribution Center. They have written works, scripture, and audio resources made in many languages.
Talk Story
​A​s a child, I gr​ew up in ​a small town on the edge of the port city of Honolulu. ​I lived in a multi-lingual neighborhood​ and was one a a hand full of mainlanders in my elementary school. I was exposed to ​elements of other languages, early on. ​A lot of my friends had grand​parents living in their homes. ​Many of those grandparents spoke English as a second Language. I had friends who spoke Japanese, ​​ Filipino, Korean, and many who spoke Pigin English at home. ​I picked up words and phrases and naturally mingled many of these words with ​my own language. As ​I gr​ew older and I ​did have a desire to do the ​work of learning ​grammar and reading ​in other languages. This early foundation ​was already in place.
The home is the first missionary training center! What has worked for you and your in learning foreign languages as a family?