Ciao from Italy!
Nov 24, 2014 19:45:08 GMT 9
Post by Marina on Nov 24, 2014 19:45:08 GMT 9
Hi everybody,
My name is Marina, I'm Italian, and I'm mom to a 4 years old boy.
I studied English at the university but never lived abroad (only short holidays here and there).
Anyway my English is not too bad (even though far from being GOOD as I wish) and my desire to teach English to my Matteo was so strong that I started listening to nursery rhymes when I was pregnant (well...this was my starting point).
When Matteo was finally born all my plans were crumbling!!! My vocabulary about diapers, dummies, willies (etc.) was so poor that I thought about abandoning my idea. I thought: "who cares, he will live abroad and he will learn the language there) BUT... I just went on singing...singing...and I found myself spending half of my day with my baby singing songs in English...and the good thing was that every occasion seemed to be good for a song!
Obviously Matteo began singing before he could talk… and he was doing that in English!! I was going in the right direction and these results gave me the strength to keep going.
In the meantime I started reading books (God bless Amazon!) and commenting them in English... and thanks to songs, books, Peppa Pig and Mickey Mouse club house I found myself talking to him naturally and amazingly!!!
Then when he grow up and started asking me “Mom, what does twinkle little star mean?” I understood that I had to give a sense to the dozens of songs he could sing and this is why I created www.songsinthebox.com, a portal with lots of US and UK songs with pictures of the lyrics and lots of activities referred to the song for children 3-9. I created this website for my kid first and then for all those parents willing to teach English to their kids with little knowledge but great love and determination! (Translations are in Italian but instructions are in both languages.)
I don’t speak English every single moment with Matteo; actually sometimes we just share a few sentences but he understands most of what I (or English speakers) say and he also answers to them!
Well, maybe this is not much…but to me this is the starting point of a great success…considering that Matteo's teacher failed 4 times her first English exam at the university!!!
Talk soon!
Marina
My name is Marina, I'm Italian, and I'm mom to a 4 years old boy.
I studied English at the university but never lived abroad (only short holidays here and there).
Anyway my English is not too bad (even though far from being GOOD as I wish) and my desire to teach English to my Matteo was so strong that I started listening to nursery rhymes when I was pregnant (well...this was my starting point).
When Matteo was finally born all my plans were crumbling!!! My vocabulary about diapers, dummies, willies (etc.) was so poor that I thought about abandoning my idea. I thought: "who cares, he will live abroad and he will learn the language there) BUT... I just went on singing...singing...and I found myself spending half of my day with my baby singing songs in English...and the good thing was that every occasion seemed to be good for a song!
Obviously Matteo began singing before he could talk… and he was doing that in English!! I was going in the right direction and these results gave me the strength to keep going.
In the meantime I started reading books (God bless Amazon!) and commenting them in English... and thanks to songs, books, Peppa Pig and Mickey Mouse club house I found myself talking to him naturally and amazingly!!!
Then when he grow up and started asking me “Mom, what does twinkle little star mean?” I understood that I had to give a sense to the dozens of songs he could sing and this is why I created www.songsinthebox.com, a portal with lots of US and UK songs with pictures of the lyrics and lots of activities referred to the song for children 3-9. I created this website for my kid first and then for all those parents willing to teach English to their kids with little knowledge but great love and determination! (Translations are in Italian but instructions are in both languages.)
I don’t speak English every single moment with Matteo; actually sometimes we just share a few sentences but he understands most of what I (or English speakers) say and he also answers to them!
Well, maybe this is not much…but to me this is the starting point of a great success…considering that Matteo's teacher failed 4 times her first English exam at the university!!!
Talk soon!
Marina
