Tips on Learning A Second Language Part 2

This is Part 2 of 3 of the series  "Tips on Learning A Second language"  as part of the Review Crew blog hop.  If you missed any of the blog posts in this series,  feel free to click on any of the links below to navigate to them.

Part 1 -Learning a second language through - IMMERSION 

Part 2 -How to make learning a second language INTERESTING AND APPLICABLE

Part 3 - Great RESOURCES for learning a second language

Let's get started...

Part 2 -How to make learning a second language INTERESTING AND APPLICABLE

"John, the pacifiers are for her."

Do you ever feel like the above picture is what your students are doing in their foreign language class?  Or worse yet that is what you would rather do, then learn another language:)

Well, I have some ideas for you today that I hope will inspire you to want to learn a second language or at least help inspire your kiddos to get excited about speaking in another language.

First of all I think it is important for anyone learning a second language to understand why in the world they want to learn it anyway.  After all, if you don't have goals or a reason to learn; why even try?  After students figure out how this new language can apply to them, they can then move on to enjoying it. 

Here is a list of ideas that may be reasons why you or your students may want to learn another language...

to communicate with people for work, socialization, or just to survive:)

to understand what people around you are saying

to read about something in it's original language so it doesn't get lost in translation

Here at Thetravelingclassroom we are learning Spanish for the first two reasons because we live in a Spanish speaking country.  We are learning Hebrew because we really want to understand the Bible in its original language.  We have studied some Greek/Latin in the past and that was really helpful with our English/Spanish Spelling words.  I am sure we will be studying more Greek/Latin in the future:)

Once you have your reasons and motivation  for learning a foreign language you can then begin to make learning fun.  A great way to learn a language is with lots of laughter.  Below are some of the activities we like to include in our foreign language studies:

jokes

games
songs

videos:
(here is one of our Spanish  favorites:  www.senorwooly.com/video)
art
music
poems
dittys
signs/around town scavenger hunt
movies  

making new friends

stories

Here is an example of an entertaining second language video:  "The Backpack"

What are your favorite things to do to make learning second language fun and applicable?