Whatever your motivation, cultural heritage or just wanting your child to enjoy the benefits other ESL children do, teaching your child English will provide them with advantages that will last for the rest of their lives.

Here are a few of the main benefits to teaching your child English:

Your child will have amazing opportunities when it comes to their career, education and social experiences like travelling. So many paths will be open to them for speaking English, it is almost unimaginable.

Cultural awareness - You are teaching your child great things about cultural diversity and through teaching them to speak English, you are giving them great insight into other cultures around the world. Whether this is connected to their own heritage, or you just want to give them a better start in life, this experience will be fantastic for your child.

Children who speak multiple languages have been shown to score far better on verbal and non verbal tests than their monolingual (single language) contemporaries. This coves a whole range of areas: communication, lateral and logical thinking, even multi-tasking! Teaching a child another language makes them more creative with all languages and gives them a flexibility they would not have otherwise.

So why is every parent not doing this and why is your school system not giving you better opportunities?

Well, many parents have fears that by teaching their child a second language they maybe holding their child back during the most important years of their development - early childhood. An often told figure is that ESL children are 7 years behind their monolingual counterparts when it comes to schooling. I understand that this seems pretty scary to parents and if you believe this figure, it's a big risk to take. You may also fear that your child will be embarrassed at school by their inability to keep up.

The great news is, this isn't true! If you teach your child English from birth, you can expect a 3-6 month delay in the time it takes for your child to learn to speak. New studies have been done that show the development of your child will be hardly affected at all. They have also found out the bilingual children tend to accelerate beyond children that only speak one language pretty quickly. Children that speak two languages score better in verbal and non-verbal tests. This includes areas like mathematics, communication and logical thinking. So, rather than delaying your child's development, you are actually giving them a spring board for greater learning!

These benefits also continue for the rest of your child's life. MRI scans used during studies of bilingual in comparison to monolingual children and adults have shown that bilingual people actually use a different part of their brain for every language. As your brain is a muscle, bilingual people are giving their brain a better life long work out. This is shown in the fact that bilingual adults actually score better in intelligence tests than those that speak only one language. Another great fact is that speaking multiple languages actually delays conditions like dementia for years!

So give your child the best opportunities. Start teaching them at home and enroll them in a program for ESL children as soon as you can. The mental, social, economic and health benefits are out of this world!

Karlee is PASSIONATE about teaching English Language Games to ESL children! She has a great LOVE for kids and thrives on creating ESL exercises for beginners. Find more English language games on her blog below:

English Language Games for ESL Children http://www.englishlanguagegames.org/english-language-games/english-language-games-4-variations-head-shoulders/
English Language Games http://www.englishlanguagegames.org/