GERMAN CLASSES AVAILABLE: INTERMEDIATE/ADVANCED LEVEL
EACH TUESDAY 4.30 pm to 6 pm: Level Intermediate/ Advanced
BEGINNER LEVEL- Starting September 2014!
German Play School - specially designed for your children - will be available on Saturday mornings from 10:00 - 11.30 am!
Location: 19 Tolka Cottages, Glasnevin, Dublin 11
Contact: Yvonne - 086 217 913 2
Main teaching approach is through day to day activities, text, audio, pictures, active and interactive exercises, video etc.
Additionally my material includes game ideas and as the need arises, use can be made of
- ideas for games and handicrafts
- flashcards and posters
- rhymes and songs
The basic materials are continuously being updated and extended. Thematically the playlessons reflect the interests of the children and cover topics such as animals, family, transportation, food and holidays.
No material must be bought by the parents. Every child will receive a binder, in which it can collect its materials and practise at home if required.
The material is entertaining but promotes the children's understanding of language at the same time.
Language acquisition methods for different age groups:
Early English - age group 3 - 6
The youngest group of learners comprises pre-school learners who for the most part cannot yet read or write. Language acquisition is therefore primarily achieved by pictures, rhymes/songs and games.
English for children - age group 6 - 9
The 6-9 year-olds experience their first contact to the written language. Step by step they learn to write individual words and next to form simple sentences.
English for children and teenagers - age group 9 - 12
The third group consists of older children who thanks to their school-learning can already read and write. Depending on the level of knowledge acquired simple grammar concepts can already be clearly taught and vocabulary practise can become more intensified.
Advantages of Bilingualism:
1. Bilingual children have a better ability to focus and ignore distractions in the environment. That’s because the part of the brain called the executive function, used for planning, judgment, working memory, problem solving and staying focused on what’s relevant is stronger in bilinguals. Every time you speak, both languages are actually active, and the brain has to work to suppress one language while the other is being used. That mechanism employs the executive function of the brain more regularly in bilinguals and therefore it becomes more efficient. This ability starts very young in bilingual babies.
In a 2009 study, researchers taught monolingual and bilingual babies that when they heard a particular sound, a puppet would appear on one side of a screen. But halfway through the study, researchers switched the puppet so it would appear on the opposite side of the screen. In order to win a reward, the infants had to modify the rule they had initially learned. Interestingly, only the bilingual babies were able to successfully learn the new rule and suppress the previously learned rule, which is similar to what the bilingual brain does when one language is being spoken.
2. Bilingual kids can switch from one activity to another faster and are better at multitasking than monolinguals. That’s also thanks to the executive function of the brain, giving bilinguals better cognitive control over information that allows them to switch tasks.
3. Bilinguals have increased mental flexibility and creativity. When you learn there is more than one word for an object, it stretches the mind in new ways and gives children greater mental flexibility and creativity as they have two windows through which they view the world. Russian psychologist Vygotsky stated that “bilingualism frees the mind from the prison of concrete language and phenomena” (Hakuta, 1985).
4. Bilingual children in dual-immersion schools have been shown in one study to score higher on both verbal and math standardized tests conducted in English.
A study conducted in the Miami-Dade school district of Florida on fourth and fifth grade students from 16 elementary schools showed that bilingual students scored significantly higher in both the verbal and math sections of the Florida standardized test than monolinguals. The bilingual students scored 23 to 34 points more than their monolingual peers in total.
5. Bilingual children display stronger logic skills and are better equipped than monolinguals at solving certain mental puzzles.
In a 2004 study that confirmed earlier studies, bilingual and monolingual preschoolers were asked to sort blue circles and red squares into two bins on their computer, one with a blue square and the other marked with a red circle. Children were first asked to sort by color, placing blue circles in the bin for blue squares and red squares in the bin for red circles. Both groups performed this task equally well. But when the children were asked to sort by shape, not color, the bilinguals performed the task with greater ease than monolinguals. This goes back to the executive function again, and that bilingual children can more easily suppress learning an old rule in favor of a new one.
6. The advantages of being bilingual carry over throughout your life, as bilingualism alters your brain chemistry, which has been linked to staving off the onset of alzheimer’s.
7. Did you know once your child knows two languages, it makes her more apt for learning a third.