How to teach Hungarian – to children?

Abstract

“To achieve success in language teaching, it is necessary to know what we do and why we do it” (Hegyi 1991). In other words, it is essential to have a methodology for language teaching, including Hungarian as a Second/Foreign Language. The field of teaching Hungarian to children is especially lacking in methodological resources. In this paper, several aspects of a future methodology are discussed. The external and the internal components of the teaching and learning process are presented in their full complexity. As regards content, several methods and techniques to teach Hungarian sounds and letters are presented, and a dialogue-based method is proposed for the teaching of Hungarian lexical and grammatical elements, within the context of teaching Hungarian to children.