How to use the sentence frames
Every activity comes with sentence frames. The purpose of the sentence frames is to create a immersive experience in the Portuguese language for you and your children.
Language learning: Children vs Adults
Both children and adults learn language best in an immersive environment. As the parent you will be providing this environment for your children, even if your can’t speak Portuguese yet. This is where the sentence frames come in.
Young children’s brains are wired differently than adults. One of the differences in language learning between children and adults is that children learn grammar passively while adults must study grammar in order to learn. As adults we must relate Portuguese grammar to the grammar of our native language. This is why we have to study it. Young children don’t have this problem. For them, grammar is passively learned.
So, with the sentence frames, children will begin to understand Portuguese grammar, even if you as the parent don’t understand it yet. It’s important for you to read up on the grammar lessons for the unit you are working on. You can find that information in the “Current Families” tab at the top of the page.
How to use sentence frames
Each activity comes with Portuguese sentence frames for you to use throughout the activity in order to start the process of integrating Portuguese dialog into your real life. You can find these sentence frames in the “Sentence Frames” Document of your download.
The sentence frames are set up so that all you need to do is plug in the new vocabulary you learned in that section. If you learned nouns, then you would include the article o/os/a/as unless the instruction on the page tells you otherwise.
Dialog
You can use both English and Portuguese in the sessions. As you go through the curriculum, you will be able to add more and more Portuguese into your play sessions.
Here is an example of some dialog from the I spy activity in the “Fruit” unit:
- Parent: Hoje vamos brincar de “Eu espio”. Do you want to play?
- Child: Ya!
- Você está pronto?
- Child: Sim!
- Parent: Vamos começar!
- Parent: Eu espio com meu olhinho…uma maçã.
- Child: I see it!
- Parent: Cadê?
- Child: Está aqui!
- Parent: That’s right! Muito bom!
As you can see, there is a mixture of English and Portuguese in this dialog. The ultimate goal is to play the activity in 100% Portuguese.
IMPORTANT!
Learning a second language does not cause speech delays BUT read this…
You can use both English and Portuguese throughout the play session. It’s important to only use one language per sentence; never (ever) mix languages within the same sentence. This is one of the only reasons a child can develop a speech delay due to learning a second language. Now, your child can use more than one language in a sentence. This is called code switching. But as a parent you must not do this.