Thai Child - Minimum Age For Learning English?

[buddy]

Dear All,

I wish to tap into your vast experience of teaching English in Thailand.

I know that children have different abilities and attention spans but what would you consider is the minimum age a Thai child should be taught "one on one" English lessons?

This would be a Thai child who has absolutely no knowledge of the English language, is going through the Thai education system and has no learning difficulties.

Is it 7 years old, 8 years old, 10 years old ???

Curious.

[Scott]

The younger the better. I have taught starter classes to 3 year old's. They didn't know a word, but boy they learn quickly. I spoke no Thai to them. They, did speak Thai to me, but I would answer in English and make sure it was with a gesture. Nodding or shaking my head, pointing, or showing them where something was. They quickly began using English.

Again, the younger the better and the easier.

[otherstuff1957]

The sooner the better. Children actually learn languages much more easily at a very young age.

[mkawish]

No, there is really no age limitation for children or anyone else to learn English or any other languages.

Mine started to hear (might not be able to listen yet then) when they were floating around in their original fluid environ, by the so-called head phone placed on mother's abdomen....

They are now multilingual.

But the entailing pain is, they talk incessantly answering in different languages....

driving their nursery teachers up the creek....

many a time, they even devilishly admit that they enjoy seeing their teachers' predicaments ....

Edited January 8, 2011 by mkawish

[SantiSuk]

I think I read somewhere that a child's ability to naturally pick up multiple languages (and they were talking about an ability of a child to pick up 5 languages) is at its height up to the age of about 8 years old. That doesn't mean that such apptitude falls off a cliff at that age though.

It's also a social thing - I notice that a 12 year old in my family is very reticent to speak English an 8 year old much less self-conscious and a 5 year old positively embraces speaking in a different tongue.