Eric Roth
Good tips and a solid foundation for both children and adults.
Your inclusion of audiobooks is particularly astute. Many ESL professionals and English language learners overlook this powerful learning tool. I strongly recommend that my adult and university students listen to their favorite books - in English. Jack London, Heminway, and Steinbeck seem to be very popular choices. This can become a very practical habit - especially if you listen in your car while commuting to work.
For the younger generation, I also suggest podcasts and YouTube. The BBC, Voice of America, and National Public Radio all provide excellent materials for the curious and ambitious.
English is now the universal language that if you need to get ahead when it comes to businesses, be it online or offline, you have to have a good grasp of the English language. For businesspeople who are unfamiliar with the English language, they find it somewhat hard to transact and do business with people who converse in English.
So to give your children as well as yourself a big helping hand on how to speak good English, here is a checklist or guide for kids as well as adults in learning the English language.
Motivation
Like any other endeavor, there should always be motivation. This is what will keep a person going to learn how to speak good English. For adults, this can be better business deals in the future, and for kids, this can be a new toy if he does well in his English studies.
Books
Aside from motivation, you should also have books about the English grammar and language. They should teach you about the verbs, adverbs, nouns, pronouns, etc. to help you really understand the English grammar not just speaking it. These kinds of books can also serve as a guide for kids in learning the language better.
Audio Books
Since you also need to know the tones and pitches of the English language to speak good English, you need to listen to audio books. An audio book is a good guide for kids to learn the language well as they can listen to the story's dialogues, thus, helping them familiarize themselves with the English language intonations and accents.
Movies
What better way, too, to learn how to speak good English than by watching English movies. This way, they can follow the conversations in real-time without having to look into the dictionary from time to time. Movies, especially movies and cartoons for children, can also be a guide for kids to mastering the language by listening to the conversations.
Writing Materials
There are books that can help you speak good English by translating into writing what is written in the book. This can take some time to finish, but speaking English is not only speaking it per se but by also writing in the language. A guide for kids when it comes to writing English is to let them write letters to their parents and friends. In this way, you can gauge a kid's grasp of the English grammar.
Vladimir Chen is a Senior Analyst and an expert in e-learning at Mingoville - a universally accepted English program to make language learning fun and enjoyable. Sign up for Mingoville at http://www.mingoville.com for free and learn English the fun way.