As an ESL teacher, mothers will often ask me what they can do at home to help children learn English. The mothers are not confident because they worry that their own English is not good enough to help their children.

However, there are many things that can be done at home to help children learn to speak English. These things are easy to do and do not require a lot of English ability. If fact, a few of them require no English at all!

Every chance your child can have to be exposed to English will slowly but surely help to improve their English ability.

Buy English videos and let your children watch them at home.
Go on a shape walk. Show your child a particular shape (square, triangle, circle) and walk around the house or outside and see how many times your child can recognize that shape.
Get a picture dictionary and look at it with your child. These are books for young learners that have many pictures grouped by topic (animals, occupations, etc.). Point to the pictures and have your child identify them.
Count things. Whenever you have a chance, count things with your child--the number of steps to the door, the number of red blocks that he has, the number of carrots he can eat.
Buy many story books and read them to your child.
Point to different things in the house or outside and ask your child what color it is.
Buy some CDs of English songs and play them in the car.
Pick a "letter of the day" and see how many things your child can name that start with that letter.
Make a special family book, or just look at family photos. Have your child point out mommy, daddy, sister, brother, grandma, grandpa, etc.
Have things on hand for writing practice. Pencils, pens, crayons, and markers are great...but also consider letting your child use chalk outside, finger paints, or colored soap in the bathtub. Encourage creativity.

By trying out even a few of these suggestions, you will be helping your child to learn English at home and you will definitely see improvements over time.

Shannon Tani has many years of experience teaching ESL preschool in Japan. She writes and maintains Teach ESL to Kids which is a resource helping ESL teachers of (very) young learners. http://www.teach-esl-to-kids.com/