*Books
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Learn or teach how to say your name, ask someone for their name plus other voca-bulary and basic grammar with short dia-logues and corresponding illustrations.
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Learn about birthday, family and toys plus numbers and colours as well as basic grammar with short dialogues and corres-ponding illustrations.
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Get to know animals and learn verbs as well as negation plus basic grammar with short dialogues and corresponding illustrations.
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*German/English Teacher/Parent Activity Guide included in each book.
** Download the Irish Teacher/Parent Activity Guide here (Irish only).
** Download the Irish Teacher/Parent Activity Guide here (Irish only).
Prefer a digital version of the books?
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Whether you are a school teacher or helping your child learn German, English or Irish at home: if you prefer to use PDF files on your white board, PC, laptop or tablet click on the button on the right and download the books as PDFs in an instant.
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Need help with pronunciation? Listen to the stories here:
German
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Irish
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Helping your child learn a new language just got a lot easier!
How are languages traditionally taught? How did you learn German, English or Irish? Let me guess: with text books and work books. How about your child: Is he sitting at his desk ‘studying’ the language with yet another workbook?
With this approach, the one aspect we use language for most – communication – is neglected to a great extent. And this is still happening, as my experience with teaching of languages at school with my own children as well as my students shows. Ask a student to use the language, e.g. speak it, and more likely than not they really have a hard time to come up with something they can’t read from a page in a textbook. Unfortunately, for many students, learning a language still means reading texts, filling in words and memorizing grammatical rules. There’s no fun doing that, is there?
If you want to help your child to learn a new language AND have a good time doing it, a different approach is needed. And the good news is this is not too difficult to achieve: language learning in context, from a young age in a playful environment.
If you are serious about your desire to raise your child with an additional language you want to familiarise yourself with activity-based language learning! This will not only provide your child with a positive learning environment and experience but it makes it enjoyable for you, too. Activity-based, however, still requires a methodical approach to teaching the language, especially if the target language is a minority language and exposure to it is limited.
I want to give you a resource to help you start teaching your child a new language or help him or her to learn skills like reading or writing.
I don' know HOW to teach/support my child at home.
I would like my child to take lessons but don't have ACCESS to lessons.
I don't know what MATERIALS to use for learning at home.
I find it difficult to make TIME for learning an additional language at home.
Are you feeling overwhelmed by the thought of teaching your child yourself?
Would you like more structure?
Are you and your child bored with textbooks and looking for activities to make learning a new language more fun?
You are not alone and I would like to help you to get the peace of mind that you are doing the right thing while offering your child an enjoyable time with you. Any of the points mentioned above can be addressed by incorporating language learning into your daily routines and activities with FOCUSED LEARNING AND TIME FOR PLAY.
I have been using this method with my own children as well as my students and help parents of my students to bring this approach home too. With my children all learning has been play-based until my eldest daughter reached the age and developmental stage to learn reading and writing in German. Before this, it was all talking, singing, playing and reading stories to and with my children.
My desire to raise my children with German, to be able to communicate with them in German as well with other members of my family, was and still is my personal motivation to keep making the effort, with me as the only German speaker around them for the majority of the time, to continue integrating a variety of activities into our daily life in order to expose my children to German. It has led me to spend a lot more one-to-one time or one-to-two time respectively than I may would have otherwise, e.g. if my children ‘only’ had to learn English, the community language.
I am also using this approach of play-based language learning with children who attend lessons with me. This method encourages the use of language for communication as opposed to being an academic subject contained to the class room. Children, especially young ones, learn through play and imitation. We need to take advantage of this behaviour to help them learn a new language.
What do I do and how do I help my children to learn another language?
Children don’t simply soak or pick up a second or new language. My children are growing up in an English-speaking environment and when they were small I was at home with them for a couple of month. But once back at work I started to think about how I will keep the German language up and alive throughout childhood and beyond. This also applies to the children attending my lessons: How can their parents and I make sure that they take something away from each lesson and keep going until we meet again?
Over the years I have prioritised two types of activities with my own children and my students. The time is takes to engage in these activities is easily the most rewarding investment – not just for language development but for bonding and creating memories with your child.
What type of activities work and how are they different to traditional methods like text- and workbooks?
You have probably already tried traditional text and workbooks: Fill in a word here, colour in a picture there… Say something about yourself, describe your hobbies…. Sounds pretty boring right? I know - I have been there too as a learner. It doesn’t mean textbooks are of no use at all – but their use should be limited to work on specific aspect such as learning about grammar or spelling once your child is older or already has some knowledge of the target language.
Activity-based learning will let your child learn the language in context, from listening and understanding to speaking it. The key is to give structure to play activities your child already engages in in his native language. The above resources will show you how you can do it.
So let’s take a look at what you will get with the books to make learning German, English or Irish exciting and fun:
3 Stories (print or PDF) – each focusing on various topics and grammar for learning the basics about:
3 Bilingual Word Walls with key words - one word wall for each story with colour-coded nouns and explanation of gender (masculine, feminine, neuter, plural)
An Activity Guide* for each story focusing on key vocabulary and grammar of each story outlining
Colouring Pages and Games for each book*
An Activity Guide** (PDF version) with further ideas plus black & white and colour illustrations for each book
An Extra One Page Story (PDF version German only) to illustrated how stories can be used to expand learning to new topics and activities
Audios/Videos (wav/MP4) – one for each story to aid with pronunciation
The stories and accompanying activities and materials are designed so that you can take them and start helping your child learn the new language at home or in the class room with resources you most likely already have or create with your child as part of the learning process.
Got any questions?
Does it take a lot of time? – You can start with 5-10 min sessions. Of course you can extend the duration of any activity but even if you just spend a few minutes daily either reading the story or doing one activity, you will set up a routine for continuous progress, one step at a time.
Can I do it without the assistance of a language teacher? – Yes, you can; even if you are learning or brushing up your own language skills together with your child.
How can we be sure our pronunciation is correct? – For each story there is an audio/video file with the full story to help you with pronunciation.
Does it include a question section to check if the child understood? – Yes, at the end of the stories (Book 2 and 3) you can do a quiz with your child to check for listening comprehension.
I panic about using the incorrect German articles der, die or das... – To assist with learning to use the correct gender the word walls with key words from each story are colour-coded in the German books.
Are the stories with pictures? – Yes, all stories contain illustrations corresponding with the text.
Which level is this resource suitable for? – This package is suitable for your child, aged 3 – 8, if he/she is starting to learn German, English or Irish, or if your child, aged 5+, is starting to read and write in these languages.
How do I take the stories and get kids to speak about it? – The activities in the activity guides provide you with ideas and instructions to help your child use words and phrases from the stories as well as transfer them to other activities.
How useful are the German stories for my child who has already been exposed to the language but now lives in an English speaking community? – Reading stories has been one of the cornerstones of my children learning German while growing up in an English speaking environment. As it’s impossible to expose our children to everything they learn in their community language by playing with friends, attending school or joining sports clubs, different types of books and stories give us the option to expose our children to those areas. Additionally, reading various types of books and stories offers the opportunity to learn and practise pronunciation, and become familiar with different styles of language such as narration, dialogue, descriptive language, idioms and grammar.
Using this package will enable you to teach your child his or her first words of a new language with fun, and practise and use the language through playful activities throughout the day. It will also be your guide to understanding how you can use your own books and stories and utilise them for helping your child continue to learn German, English or Irish while having a good time together!
These comprehensive resources will give you peace of mind and the confidence that you are using a proven method that works AND sets you up to fulfill your desire to raise your child with an additional language and make it a part of his or her life, just as it is a part of yours!
The books are available on Amazon (prints) and at my shop on TeachersPayTeachers.com (PDF).
Best wishes & viel Spaß und Erfolg,
Sandra Lorenz-O'Sullivan
*not included in the Irish language books; the activity guide including colouring pages and games in Irish is available in my shop
on TeachersPayTeachers.com.
** only availbale with the digital version of the German-English books
How are languages traditionally taught? How did you learn German, English or Irish? Let me guess: with text books and work books. How about your child: Is he sitting at his desk ‘studying’ the language with yet another workbook?
With this approach, the one aspect we use language for most – communication – is neglected to a great extent. And this is still happening, as my experience with teaching of languages at school with my own children as well as my students shows. Ask a student to use the language, e.g. speak it, and more likely than not they really have a hard time to come up with something they can’t read from a page in a textbook. Unfortunately, for many students, learning a language still means reading texts, filling in words and memorizing grammatical rules. There’s no fun doing that, is there?
If you want to help your child to learn a new language AND have a good time doing it, a different approach is needed. And the good news is this is not too difficult to achieve: language learning in context, from a young age in a playful environment.
If you are serious about your desire to raise your child with an additional language you want to familiarise yourself with activity-based language learning! This will not only provide your child with a positive learning environment and experience but it makes it enjoyable for you, too. Activity-based, however, still requires a methodical approach to teaching the language, especially if the target language is a minority language and exposure to it is limited.
I want to give you a resource to help you start teaching your child a new language or help him or her to learn skills like reading or writing.
I don' know HOW to teach/support my child at home.
I would like my child to take lessons but don't have ACCESS to lessons.
I don't know what MATERIALS to use for learning at home.
I find it difficult to make TIME for learning an additional language at home.
Are you feeling overwhelmed by the thought of teaching your child yourself?
Would you like more structure?
Are you and your child bored with textbooks and looking for activities to make learning a new language more fun?
You are not alone and I would like to help you to get the peace of mind that you are doing the right thing while offering your child an enjoyable time with you. Any of the points mentioned above can be addressed by incorporating language learning into your daily routines and activities with FOCUSED LEARNING AND TIME FOR PLAY.
I have been using this method with my own children as well as my students and help parents of my students to bring this approach home too. With my children all learning has been play-based until my eldest daughter reached the age and developmental stage to learn reading and writing in German. Before this, it was all talking, singing, playing and reading stories to and with my children.
My desire to raise my children with German, to be able to communicate with them in German as well with other members of my family, was and still is my personal motivation to keep making the effort, with me as the only German speaker around them for the majority of the time, to continue integrating a variety of activities into our daily life in order to expose my children to German. It has led me to spend a lot more one-to-one time or one-to-two time respectively than I may would have otherwise, e.g. if my children ‘only’ had to learn English, the community language.
I am also using this approach of play-based language learning with children who attend lessons with me. This method encourages the use of language for communication as opposed to being an academic subject contained to the class room. Children, especially young ones, learn through play and imitation. We need to take advantage of this behaviour to help them learn a new language.
What do I do and how do I help my children to learn another language?
Children don’t simply soak or pick up a second or new language. My children are growing up in an English-speaking environment and when they were small I was at home with them for a couple of month. But once back at work I started to think about how I will keep the German language up and alive throughout childhood and beyond. This also applies to the children attending my lessons: How can their parents and I make sure that they take something away from each lesson and keep going until we meet again?
Over the years I have prioritised two types of activities with my own children and my students. The time is takes to engage in these activities is easily the most rewarding investment – not just for language development but for bonding and creating memories with your child.
What type of activities work and how are they different to traditional methods like text- and workbooks?
You have probably already tried traditional text and workbooks: Fill in a word here, colour in a picture there… Say something about yourself, describe your hobbies…. Sounds pretty boring right? I know - I have been there too as a learner. It doesn’t mean textbooks are of no use at all – but their use should be limited to work on specific aspect such as learning about grammar or spelling once your child is older or already has some knowledge of the target language.
Activity-based learning will let your child learn the language in context, from listening and understanding to speaking it. The key is to give structure to play activities your child already engages in in his native language. The above resources will show you how you can do it.
So let’s take a look at what you will get with the books to make learning German, English or Irish exciting and fun:
3 Stories (print or PDF) – each focusing on various topics and grammar for learning the basics about:
- Introducing yourself
- Toys & Games
- Birthday
- Birthday Song
- Food
- Family Members
- Numbers
- Colours
- Animals
- Personal pronouns
- Definite and Indefinite Articles
- Verbs and verb conjugation
- Modal verbs
- Possessive articles
- Question words
- Negation
- Adjectives
- Conjunctions
3 Bilingual Word Walls with key words - one word wall for each story with colour-coded nouns and explanation of gender (masculine, feminine, neuter, plural)
An Activity Guide* for each story focusing on key vocabulary and grammar of each story outlining
- learning objectives
- vocabulary list
- required materials
- detailed description of activities
Colouring Pages and Games for each book*
An Activity Guide** (PDF version) with further ideas plus black & white and colour illustrations for each book
An Extra One Page Story (PDF version German only) to illustrated how stories can be used to expand learning to new topics and activities
Audios/Videos (wav/MP4) – one for each story to aid with pronunciation
The stories and accompanying activities and materials are designed so that you can take them and start helping your child learn the new language at home or in the class room with resources you most likely already have or create with your child as part of the learning process.
Got any questions?
Does it take a lot of time? – You can start with 5-10 min sessions. Of course you can extend the duration of any activity but even if you just spend a few minutes daily either reading the story or doing one activity, you will set up a routine for continuous progress, one step at a time.
Can I do it without the assistance of a language teacher? – Yes, you can; even if you are learning or brushing up your own language skills together with your child.
How can we be sure our pronunciation is correct? – For each story there is an audio/video file with the full story to help you with pronunciation.
Does it include a question section to check if the child understood? – Yes, at the end of the stories (Book 2 and 3) you can do a quiz with your child to check for listening comprehension.
I panic about using the incorrect German articles der, die or das... – To assist with learning to use the correct gender the word walls with key words from each story are colour-coded in the German books.
Are the stories with pictures? – Yes, all stories contain illustrations corresponding with the text.
Which level is this resource suitable for? – This package is suitable for your child, aged 3 – 8, if he/she is starting to learn German, English or Irish, or if your child, aged 5+, is starting to read and write in these languages.
How do I take the stories and get kids to speak about it? – The activities in the activity guides provide you with ideas and instructions to help your child use words and phrases from the stories as well as transfer them to other activities.
How useful are the German stories for my child who has already been exposed to the language but now lives in an English speaking community? – Reading stories has been one of the cornerstones of my children learning German while growing up in an English speaking environment. As it’s impossible to expose our children to everything they learn in their community language by playing with friends, attending school or joining sports clubs, different types of books and stories give us the option to expose our children to those areas. Additionally, reading various types of books and stories offers the opportunity to learn and practise pronunciation, and become familiar with different styles of language such as narration, dialogue, descriptive language, idioms and grammar.
Using this package will enable you to teach your child his or her first words of a new language with fun, and practise and use the language through playful activities throughout the day. It will also be your guide to understanding how you can use your own books and stories and utilise them for helping your child continue to learn German, English or Irish while having a good time together!
These comprehensive resources will give you peace of mind and the confidence that you are using a proven method that works AND sets you up to fulfill your desire to raise your child with an additional language and make it a part of his or her life, just as it is a part of yours!
The books are available on Amazon (prints) and at my shop on TeachersPayTeachers.com (PDF).
Best wishes & viel Spaß und Erfolg,
Sandra Lorenz-O'Sullivan
*not included in the Irish language books; the activity guide including colouring pages and games in Irish is available in my shop
on TeachersPayTeachers.com.
** only availbale with the digital version of the German-English books
