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How can young children best learn languages? The British Council's Tracey Chapelton explains how parents of young children can lay the foundations for success. Children's brains are highly active Your child is unique, but what all children have in common is natural curiosity and an innate ability to learn. Kuhl states that babies and young children are geniuses at acquiring a second language. 'Babies', she says, 'can discriminate all the sounds of all languages... and that's remarkable because you and I can't do that.

Moodle Are you daunted by the prospect of teaching English to very young children? Sheona Gilmour, lead educator on our new online course for teachers and parents, offers a few tips. Teaching English to very young children can be challenging, especially if you haven't done any training for the early years classroom. The first time I walked into a kindergarten, I didn’t want to go back the next day. I came from a background of teaching older children, who sat at desks and whose attention I could hold more easily. So the new environment, full of young children with much shorter attention spans, felt overwhelming. Primary Plus – English for kids aged 6-12 During the Covid-19 pandemic many of our teaching centres are closed. Classes will continue online and our teachers look forward to bringing their passion and expertise into your home. Primary Plus, developed by our team of English experts, will spark your child’s imagination, so they can express themselves with confidence that goes beyond their English language skills.

To Help Children Learn, Build on What They Already Know - RAISE READY KIDS In his brilliant children’s book Fish Is Fish, Leo Lionni tells the story of a fish and tadpole who become best friends. Eventually, of course, the tadpole grows up, becomes a frog, and ventures out onto dry land. One day, the frog jumps back into the pond to see his old friend the fish. 6 Types of Play: How Children's Play Becomes More Social Play is a serious business. The pioneering developmental psychologist Lev Vygotsky thought that, in the preschool years, play is the leading source of development. Through play children learn and practice many basic social skills. They develop a sense of self, learn to interact with other children, how to make friends, how to lie and how to role-play. The classic study of how play develops in children was carried out by Mildred Parten in the late 1920s at the Institute of Child Development in Minnesota.

Moodle ‘Take the child on from where they are now’ has long been a slogan in early childhood, but I wonder, as educators, if we always do it? My four-year-old granddaughter, Mia, is extremely capable with modern technologies; she can use a mobile phone and digital camera and browse a DVD to select particular scenes in a movie. She is not ‘print literate’, but she is ‘techno-literate’. I’m not advocating techno-skills for babies, but I am conscious that this competence may not be valued as she goes into preschool. She may well be told ‘that’s ok at home, but we do things differently here’. My second granddaughter, Maddie, when aged five, entered Prep and, when I asked what she was learning ‘at big school’, she said: ‘We do an awful lot of counting’. Let’s lose the ADHD label and find the child When I trained as a primary school teacher 15 years ago, these were some of the words used to describe children with ADHD: ‘Difficult.’ ‘Challenging.’ ‘Disruptive.’

Observation, Assessment and Planning - Early Years Matters The EYFS Profile summarises and describes children’s attainment at the end of the EYFS. It is based on on-going observation and assessment in the three prime and four specific areas of learning, and the three learning characteristics, set out below: The prime areas of learning: • communication and language • physical development How young children learn English through play As we release Learning Time with Timmy – our first app for early-years learners of English – Danitza Villarroel, a teacher on our Learning Time with Shaun and Timmy course in Chile, explains the importance of learning through play, and offers a few tips for teachers new to this age group. Teaching English to pre-school children can be daunting for teachers new to this age group. Young children have shorter attention spans than older children and adults, and they're still learning their mother tongue.

Six Characteristics of a Great STEM Lesson —Getty By Anne Jolly STEM is more than just a grouping of subject areas. It is a movement to develop the deep mathematical and scientific underpinnings students need to be competitive in the 21st-century workforce. But this movement goes far beyond preparing students for specific jobs. How Are Happiness and Learning Connected? As teachers, we also know that when students' affective filters or defenses are sky high, fight or flight responses will be modus operandi. A room full of defensive behaviors (withdrawn, angry) is a sad, unproductive place to teach and learn. Now let's flip it and take a look at how much more we are able to learn when we are in harmony with the people and things in any given educational environment. Being in harmony means feeling safe, feeling valued and a necessary part a group, and in this case, a learning community. Hearts and Minds in Sync

Maths games for KS2 – Recap equivalent fractions in KS2 by getting active This Y4 lesson by Jon Smedley involves combining maths with physical activity to enthuse pupils about fractions. Now children are back in school the focus is on addressing any learning gaps that may have developed during lockdown. However, spending hours at a desk is not how most teachers want to help children catch up. Taking Playtime Seriously So part of encouraging play is pulling back on how much programmed goal-directed learning we expect from very young children, to leave them time for the fun of exploration, curiosity and, well, fun. But another important part may be creating environments that foster children’s play and parents’ participation and attention. Dr. Hirsh-Pasek, who is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, cited its Learning Landscapes Initiative, which aims to set up learning opportunities in public places where people will encounter them.

How young children learn English as another language By Opal Dunn, educational consultant and author Introduction Young children are natural language acquirers; they are self-motivated to pick up language without conscious learning, unlike adolescents and adults. They have the ability to imitate pronunciation and work out the rules for themselves.