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When it comes to learning any topic, some of the most important aspects are: motivation, time available, practice, and an appropriate learning environment. When it comes to language learning the added challenge of the existence of an L1 is very important to keep in mind, and in order to overcome this, a lot of research has been made over the years, one of the most common advice among language learners and teachers is to have as much contact as possible with the language that one is looking to learn. To this end it seems rather obvious that the most opportune time to learn a language is during childhood, since the acquisition of both L1 and L2 do not overlap as much as when reaching adulthood. This being said, starting to learn a second language at a young age does not automatically imply complete language absorption, based on this, there are a lot of studies that are focused on language teaching techniques and methodologies for young learners, the main reason for this being that for young learners the aspects mentioned above are “enhanced” in a way, they become more delicate to handle and become too variable from student to student for only a teacher to control. A teacher has only certain influence over the students, influence that should not be overlooked but is limited in nature, on the other hand the influence of a parent is obviously heavier and more important, hence, during the language learning process of a young learner the support and help from the parents will enhance the experience for the students as well as their capabilities with the language. This support can come in different ways, but an important one that is not common in most scenarios when teaching English as L2, is that the parents are learning the language as well. The scope of the support that an English learning parent can give for their children is massive, ranging from help with homework or difficult topics, all the way to understanding more deeply the possible learning difficulties the child can have with the language, since the parent could be having them as well. This kind of support will help in a great way all the key aspects in the learning cycle, given that it can improve motivation for both the parent and the child, it helps to create a comfortable learning environment and it can increase the practice time. There are several ways that this can be executed, from every day conversations in the language, to the appreciation of different media in the target language. Among these, one of the rarest ones is for parent-children classes methodology, this is not commonly offered by language centers, since the focus of the class is on the young learner abilities, and staying in the class can sometimes bore or annoy some of the parents, but of course, in most instances the parent is leaning in a separate group, probably in a different institute as well. Regardless of the method or the way to support a young learner’s development, having the knowledge or the interest of knowing another language from a parent can be extremely useful and should be incentivized more in language training schools as part of a full immersion program.
