LANGUS is recognized by the Warsaw Department of Education. Children are our very special Clients. We teach courses for children applying all their senses and engaging their minds. Our youngest Students participate in cultural projects such as song contests and poetry reciting competitions. In class they become acquainted with the customs of Anglo-Saxon, French-speaking, Spanish and Latin American countries.
We only teach in small groups of 4-8 students starting with 6 years of age. The youngest children have classes twice a week for 45 minutes. A child’s memory is fast-fading, and concentration span very short. On the other hand, a child’s mind has unusual abilities to absorb information and stimuli, and possesses special qualities that, if not developed, will be lost forever. Therefore, we believe that children should have short but frequent classes and they should learn through play. During the first one or two years of instruction children can be taught VERY EFFECTIVELY without introducing writing or reading skills. The time spent in class is gradually increased to 2 x 60 minutes a week for children of 13 years of age and 2 x 90 minutes a week for secondary school students. We strongly encourage the Parents to contact the school in order to receive information on their children’s progress. Our office staff as well as the teachers will be glad to answer all questions and will be happy to help build a language development plan for the students.
Courses for children are organized and divided according to the learners ages, and according to their language competence. The teachers who teach children’s classes have several years of experience in teaching young learners. They are enthusiastic about their work and know how to channel the unlimited energy of our youngest Students. They are able to develop children’s passion for learning languages. We use curricula approved by the Ministry of Education. In order to enroll on a course you ought to visit one of the school offices. We will ask our future young Student to fill in a short (15-minute) entry test, which is constructed according to the cognitive abilities of each age group. Moreover, the instructor teaching a given course will verify the result of the test.
Why should language acquisition start as early in life as possible?
- Brain structure:
- Pronunciation and intonation:
- Listening comprehension, speaking:
- Mother tongue versus a foreign language:
- Insignificant individual differences:
the part of the brain responsible for speech posses highest abilities of “absorption” between one and nine/ten years of age.
it has been proven beyond any doubt that only children who begin to acquire a language before reaching adolescence have the ability to master perfect pronunciation and intonation, that is at the level of a native speaker. From there on, it is IMPOSSIBLE. Scientists explain that phenomenon by physiological changes that occur in the brain during adolescence. Good pronunciation facilitates communication.
even though children, while formally instructed, learn more slowly than teenagers, eventually their speaking and listening skills become better developed. Teenagers may perform better in other fields of language learning such as translating, sentence repetition or assessing the degree of correctness of utterances. But finally these are the speaking and listening skills as well as pronunciation what make a successful communicator and language user nowadays. With age mastering those three areas of language becomes more and more difficult. Children, however, acquire those skills spontaneously.
research has shown that in a majority of cases learning a foreign language facilitates mother tongue acquisition. In Great Britain it has been proven that children who were studying a foreign language, in general were higher achievers than the children who did not study any foreign language.
if provided with an early (especially before reaching the age of 9) and intensive contact with a language, children have almost equal possibilities of mastering it – individual differences are almost insignificant. Individual differences develop with age and eventually influence language competence. This is probably due to the fact that children lack the fear of speaking, are out-going and are generally open to new stimuli.
