Introduction: How to Help Your Kids Remember Words in Foreign Languages

My sister-in-law is a big supporter of Glenn Doman methods of teaching children and accelerating child’s brain development. You can find more info on internet about the methods.
I can only attest to the results:
At 8 months old her daughter was pointing at flash cards with words to identify what she wants to say. The set was limited to 10-15 words but this was helpful because she was communicating her needs and wants. At 3 years old she was sitting on her potty and reading books. Now, at 14 she fluently speaks 3 languages and is a straight A student at school.
What I learned from my sister-in-law is that you can teach a child something by simply putting the material in front of his or her eyes. This makes them remember. My sister-in-law used to glue the same math formula in every place of the house where my niece used to spend time. The math formulas and vocabulary words were in her bathroom, bedroom, in the dining room, above the TV, etc.
The walls and the doors were a mess covered with remnants of Scotch, old glue, pin holes – you name it.
My walls are pristine but I still attach formulas and vocabulary words to walls and doors. I do not use any of the permanent glueing materials, I use electrostatics. If you have ever owned static cling wall decals, or static cling stickers, or plastic film food wrap, such as Stretch-Tite, you would know what I am talking about.  Glueing by applying electrostatics does not leave any traces and holds very well for quite a long period of time.
Materials:
1. Any regular plastic film (you can even cut a trash bag to rectangles of the size that you need, or you can take a plastic grocery bag and cut it – Target bags work the best)
2. Electrostatic generator. Van de Graaff or electronic one would do just fine.  I use electrostatic generators that come as toys, because they are portable and easy to use.  My current pick is  the Poly-Rollee toy and before that I used the Fun-Fly-Stick, and before that I used a hand-made generator from Instructables (I think it was from here...). Both toys mentioned here are static charge generators in the essence and both will work.
3. The printouts of foreign language words that you want your kid to remember.

Step 1:

Dedicate some space on your walls for the flash cards to hang. Don't worry! Your walls will remain clean when you remove the cards.

Step 2:

Take a rectangular sheet of the cheapest plastic film you can find. Do not use ready static cling films. I mean it! Get the cheapest or reuse your grocery bags. The sheet has to be larger in size than the flash card that you want to glue to the wall. Mine is about 1" larger in each dimension than my paper.

All you have to do is to apply some static charge onto the film while you are holding it on the wall. I have a portable Van de Graaff with a roller that helps me charging.


Pardon me for the colors. I made pictures at home with my regular camera without flash, because of the glare on the film from the camera. So I had to adjust the contrast and colors.

Step 3:

When the film is on the wall it seems that it is being held by a very strong magnetic force.

Step 4:

Then you hold the flashcard over the film while you are charging the flashcard with static charge.

Step 5:

We replace the foreign language words every 2 days, but the same words reappear  after 4 days.
For example, I have the words below stay for 2 days, then I have the next 3 words up on the wall, and then in 2 days they get replaced as well with another set. Then I rotate them one more time. For us this is enough to learn the words and to remember them.