Fire up your child’s language learning potential!

    • learning a second language is increasingly important

      “Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire” – William Butler Yeats

      With most parents already recognising the many benefits that learning a second language can give their children, they are also now realising that second language skills are becoming increasingly important in a progressively global and homogenised world. The benefits of learning a foreign language are not confined to only the cognitive, social and behavioural benefits either, but extend to a child’s future prospects as well, the most obvious of which is their career opportunities.

      There are many great advantages to being proficient in more than one language, and increased employability is definitely one of them. Not only does a multi-lingual person have a lot of choice when it comes to which countries in the world they can work, but they also have a larger variety of employment opportunities to choose from.

      This graphic, courtesy of the Aussie government, gives a great representation of some fantastic career opportunities that are open to those of us with more than one language, as well as showing the necessary skill levels required for the job.  You can view the full size image and download it for future reference here

       

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  • The 5 Stages of Second Language Acquisition

    • how do children learn another languageDuring childhood, the brain is more receptive to language learning than at any other time in a person’s life and starting foreign or second language learning early sets the stage for a child to develop advanced levels of proficiency in more than one language. Bilingualism is also increasingly being seen as a necessary 21st century skill set. Apart from the extensively researched and recognised cognitive benefits from learning more than one language, doing so as a young child dramatically improves the development of a near-native pronunciation and language intonation in the second language.

      More and more parents are accepting that knowledge of a language other than English (LOTE) can also enrich their child’s understanding and acceptance of other cultures, and the attendant future job opportunities it can bring in a world being brought ever closer together by increasing globalisation. So it’s no surprise that they are choosing to raise their child/ren as bilingual and/or give them the opportunity to learn a foreign language.

      However, as we all know, young children can sometimes be notoriously difficult to “read” and so – to ensure the best chance of success to achieve their bilingual goals for their child – it’s helpful for the parents of these ‘little linguists’ to understand their child’s language learning progression and the stages associated with second language acquisition. 

      The current theories of second language acquisition are based on research in a variety of language related fields such as linguistics and neurolinguistics, psychology, sociology and anthropology and language researchers have developed a GENERAL outline that helps to explain the process that second language learners go through.  (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Krashen)

      Anyone who has been around children who are learning to talk knows that the process happens in stages—first understanding, then one-word utterances, then two-word phrases, and so on. Similarly, children learning a second language move through a number of predictable stages:

       

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  • Language lessons for kids made easy in 3 ways …

    • … AND your first lesson is FREE!

      But don’t just take our word for it … check out these videos of our language clubs in action … they speak for themselves!

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      Lessons make use of FUN games, crafts and activites

      Request a free trial language lesson

       

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  • Mandarin language learning is here to stay!

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      Giving children the opportunity to learn the Mandarin Chinese language is growing massively in popularity in Australasia and Mandarin is being increasingly recognized as one of the most important languages to learn after English. 
       

      5 Reasons to Learn Mandarin Chinese

      • China is one of the world’s oldest and richest continuous cultures, over 5000 years old.
      • China is the second largest economy in the world. and one of largest trading partners of Australasia.
      • Chinese is spoken by over 1 billion people around the world, (about one fifth of the global population) making it the most widely spoken first language in the world.
      • China plays a major role in world affairs and economies and international businesses prefer to hire people who speak more than one language.
      • Even a basic knowledge of Mandarin Chinese will lend those people an edge in competitive job markets.
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  • Ditch the rules, lose the bullies?

    • how does bullying affect kids

       Image source: http://www.essentialkids.com.au

      A recent experiment / study, conducted by two New Zealand universities for “encouraging active play” in school playgrounds, turned up some unsurprising results.  The detrimental effects of the Westernised, and increasingly pervasive, “cotton wool” approach to child safety, and the impact of all these rules and regulations on our kids, is noticeable in the behaviour that is manifested on the playground.  

      If we’re to be honest, there probably wasn’t too much need for the study in the first place. The past experience of our educators, and sound judgement rather than “knee jerk reactions”, should be enough when it comes to the Health & Safety regulations that are put in place in schools.

      So, despite our overly litigious westernised society, (which is the reason so often given for the regulations), it’s always a good idea to let common sense prevail when it comes to raising those “little bundles”! 

      Have your say:  Do we worry too much about Health & Safety?

      Post a comment on our Facebook Page

      Here’s an excerpt from a recent online article about the experiment.

       

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