How to improve foreign languages at home?

Photo JACQUELINE BRANDWAYN on Unsplash

Why should we consider speaking foreign languages at home? Basically, because it's an investment for our children's future, but it's also a way to keep our foreign languages in good health. Like many people who studied foreign languages, I'm obsessed with finding ways to practice them. Writing a blog in English is one of them. I need to improve my skills daily because I speak foreign languages at home with my children, who are six and three years and a half. 

My obsession with foreign languages started when I was 4 years old. In Sardinia, we speak Italian, and the island is considered one of the best places to study the Italian language. But we also have countless dialects, very different from north to south. When I was a little girl I used to go to my grandparent's house, where all the relatives gathered during all the most important feast days. That's the place where I first realized that we can say things in many different ways, according to the person we talk to. I spoke Italian with my parents, I started to speak with my grandparents in "Gallurese", a dialect of the north, and in "Logudorese", another language spoken in the central part of Sardinia, with an aunt.

When I started middle school I finally had the opportunity to learn French, thanks to a great teacher, who made me love the language and the culture. I literally fell in love with French, I learned without any effort and also studied on my own, just for fun.

Then, in secondary school, I started studying English, but unluckily, my teachers weren't able to make me love the language at first sight. They only focused on grammar rules and never had the time for conversation. Long story short, when I went to university I had to make an effort to bridge my huge gap in English. I attended several extra language courses in Cagliari and my parents spent a fortune sending me abroad, hoping to help me pass the exams. I graduated with a thesis in French literature and I also got a ministerial certification to teach English language in secondary schools. But I still felt uneasy speaking English.

Meanwhile, I was learning Spanish. My story with the Spanish language began in France, where I worked for seven months in a secondary school and met two Spanish girls who soon became dear friends. I learned Spanish by travelling and having fun. When I came back to Italy I attended private lessons with a teacher from Valencia to get a language certification, and I got it, with an excellent mark: I felt so proud!

On the opposite, I felt so upset about my English but It was only after my first pregnancy that I created my method for improving it:

I started reading books that I really liked. Reading with purpose is a great way to enlarge vocabulary. At first, it was tiring because I had to check many words in the dictionary and it wasn't easy to follow the rhythm of the sentences.

I began watching videos and tutorials about my interests and I discovered new ones. Listening is easier if you are interested in the topic. Some accents are very understandable, and others are extremely complicated because there are so many different English pronunciations in the world. 

I tried writing speeches about topics that I found interesting and recording myself. Speaking is the most difficult skill to improve because you don't have the time to think about what you're going to say. At first, I used to think in my first language and translate but this is tiring and can slow and even stop a conversation. So I decided to give up on my perfectionism and speak directly in English. It works much better now, well, it depends on the days and on how I slept the night before! 

This method seems to work quite well and I'm using it with French and Spanish too. What do you think? Do you have more suggestions?