CHILDREN’S PROGRAM
…educating a new generation of bilingual children!
Registration Now Open!
For information contact Anuschka Stott at ” discoveringlanguages@yahoo.com “
Spring Schedule 2009
Semester: 1/19/09 - 5/15/09 (17 weeks)
Spring Break: 3/16 - 3/20/09
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Monday |
Tuesday |
Wednesday |
Thursday |
Friday |
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9:30 |
Preschool Spanish |
Mommy-and-me |
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10:00 |
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10:30 |
Mommy-and-me |
10:15am |
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Mommy-and-me |
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11:00 |
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11:30 |
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3:00 |
Little Lingua Land |
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3:30 |
Elementary |
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4:00 |
Elementary |
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4:15pm:Elementary |
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4:30 |
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5:00 |
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5:30 |
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Spring Tuition 2009
$25 registration fee due at the beginning of the semester
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Class |
Age Group |
Hours / week |
Price / semester |
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Bilingual Toddler |
1 – 3 years |
45 min |
$155 |
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Bilingual Toddler |
1 – 3 years |
2x 45 min |
$295 |
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Bilingual Preschool |
3 – 5 years |
1 hour |
$175 |
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Little Lingua Land |
3 – 5 years |
2 hours |
$310 |
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Bilingual Elementary |
6 – 12 years |
1 hour |
$195 |
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Bilingual Elementary |
6 – 12 years |
2 hours |
$385 |
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Tutoring |
group |
2 hours |
$416 |
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Tutoring |
private |
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$30 / hour |
Bilingual Toddler (1 – 3 years)
In this music based mommy-and-me class, toddlers and their mothers get introduced to a foreign language through songs and playful activities. 45 minutes.
Bilingual Preschooler / Little Lingua Land (3 - 6 years)
Preschoolers and Kindergarteners playfully learn the basics of a foreign language through gradual language immersion. Classes consist of short group lessons, games, songs and crafts. 1 or 2 hours.
Bilingual Elementary (6 - 12 years)
Elementary students learn the target language through total language immersion, TPR and playful learning. Classes consist of art, music, active games and structured lessons introducing basic reading and writing skills. 1 or 2 hours.
Homeschool Support & Tutoring
Group and private lessons for all grade levels. Tutoring can be scheduled in the afternoon and evening, while homeschool support is also being offered during the morning hours.
Middle and High School students are taught in a formal classroom setting using regular textbooks according to grade level and language aptitude. In addition to vocabulary and grammar, we put a strong emphasis on active listening and phrasing. Spanish, German, French, Italian, Chinese, Arabic, ESL.
Why Learn a Second Language?
Because it’s fun and it’s useful. In today’s world it is more important than ever to know more than one language. But learning a second language at a young age has many other benefits. Children exposed to foreign languages during the early years of life have a much higher level of success in other studies. They develop greater problem solving skills, perform better in their native language, and become more open to other cultures.
When Can a Child Learn a Second Language?
The sooner the better. Children that start learning a second language at an early age learn without effort and have a better chance of developing a high level of proficiency. After childhood some basic connections in the brain can no longer be made and learning a second language becomes much more difficult.
How Do We Teach?
In the Discovering Languages program for children we teach through gradual language immersion and the Total Physical Response method – a teaching method combining speech with motion. Learning increments are short, based on the attention span of young children, and learning becomes a fun-filled activity. The children enjoy learning the target language through the use of games, songs, and hands-on activities.
Did you know?
When is the ideal time to learn a language? Most school children start too late. Here’s why:
Four-year-old Alexandra Demers talks to her toy animals in Japanese. At snack time, she spontaneously shifts to French: “Jus de pomme, s’il vous plait.” (”Apple juice, please.”) Lindsay Swan, age 8, shows an ability to carry on a basic conversation in French without the slightest English accent. Both have been students since the age of 2 at the Language Workshop for Children in New York. They are part of a growing number of children — many barely out of their toddler years — enrolled in language schools and programs across the country.
Sounds like parents pushing their kids toward over-achievement? Not entirely, say educators and child development researchers. “In the past decade or so, we’ve learned a tremendous amount about the best way to teach foreign languages so kids develop a real proficiency for using them,” says Christine Brown, director of foreign languages for the Glastonbury, Connecticut, public schools and chairperson of the National Standards Task Force on Foreign Language Education. “From both a practical teaching standpoint as well as the latest research, we now know that the better learner is one who starts early — at least before age 10.”
Even public schools are embracing the trend toward earlier foreign language education. In the not-sodistant past, most offered foreign language as an elective, generally starting in junior or senior high school. Thanks to the Goals 2000 education initiative and the input of thousands of teachers, Brown’s task force recommended that all children have the opportunity to study foreign languages in elementary school, ideally starting in kindergarten or first grade. Heeding that call, 24 states report teaching foreign languages in public elementary schools with enrollment in these programs up 18 percent from 1990 to 1994, according to the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages.
“In terms of benefits, the research is pretty conclusive that students exposed to foreign languages in the elementary and preschool years have a much higher level of success in other studies,” says Eileen Glisan, a Spanish and foreign language education professor at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. “They develop greater problem-solving skills, perform better in their native language, and become more open to other cultures.”
Brain Waiting to Be Programmed
Some of this insight into the benefits of language training has come from brain and linguistics researchers who have recently identified a “window of opportunity” during which learning a language comes easiest. ‘There are initial windows of opportunity in the human brain; the ability to develop a second language is highest between birth and age six” Says Robert Doman, Founder National Academy for Child Development.
According to neurobiologists, a newborn’s brain is like a new computer waiting to be programmed. Some of the brain’s basic functions, such as breathing and heartbeat, are fixed in place while a baby is still in the womb. But trillions of other connections in the brain are just waiting to be made, or programmed in, during the first years of life. Some of these early connections govern such skills as the ability to see and distinguish faces and objects, to master basic motor skills, and to learn languages. These early childhood experiences also represent the skills most likely to stick with us for life. As a result, say some researchers, an immature brain may offer certain advantages for acquiring a second or third language.
“The power to learn language is so great in the young child that it doesn’t seem to matter how many languages you throw their way. They can learn as many as you allow them to hear systematically and regularly at the same time,” says Susan Curtis, linguistics professor at the University of California, Los Angeles.
After a certain period, however, which most researchers say is about age 9 or 10, some basic connections can no longer be made in the brain. In essence, the window of opportunity to easily acquire multiple languages gradually shuts. In fact, children who have never learned even a first language by this age, due to hearing problems, for instance, will generally never be able to speak their native language well.
“What seems to happen is that during the course of childhood the brain becomes slowly less plastic,” says Curtis. “And by the time the child reaches puberty, the brain has become significantly less plastic and is not able to restructure itself.
“Consequently,” Curtis says, “the mind as well as the brain in essence becomes rigid and cannot develop richly and normally any real cognitive system, including language.”
This doesn’t mean you can’t learn a second language as a teenager or adult. Motivation and necessity are also powerful learning forces, say educators. “But your likelihood of mastering a new language with as much ease at that point or of ever speaking it like a native are almost nil,” “For toddlers, learning one language is no more difficult than learning another…Even if the child doesn’t continue in the language, learning so young clearly stimulates brain activity” says Francois Thibaut, Founder of the Language Workshop for Children in New York, who has taught foreign language to children and adults for 25 years and also is Pioneer Specialist in Early Childhood Education.
That, in part, explains the recent rush of some parents to enroll infants as young as 6 months in foreign language workshops. Yet, the notion that an early start is the magic bullet to mastering a foreign language remains controversial.
“The idea here is not just to teach them about the rules of the language but to get students actively involved in using it right from the beginning,” says Brown. “Kids soak up language by osmosis, and it’s a very effective approach — particularly when it’s taught through a variety of activities. After all, that’s the way we learn our own language.”