Our Approach
Language Stars FunImmersion methodology comprises the language learning approaches:
Functional Language
Language Stars' FunImmersion curriculum presents the foreign language in phrases, simple sentences and target structures. We believe that language instruction for children must go beyond simple vocabulary lists to functional language. We want to give children the tools to express themselves simply in another language.
Teaching children language in functional chunks such as, "My name is____," or "I want a ______" allows children to assimilate and communicate global meaning before breaking language down into its discrete grammatical parts. Linguistic research shows that children retain and retrieve language best in chunks, rather than in individual words. This approach enables them to communicate more fully, sooner.
The key components of our curriculum include:
- Language Chunks: equipping children right away with functional language through key phrases and language chunks rather than just vocabulary lists.
- Sheltered language: using slower, well-articulated language and consistent phrasing to facilitate comprehension.
- Rhythm: setting key phrases and structures to rhythm as a retention and retrieval tool.
- Repetition: repeating key phrases and structures to reinforce retention.
- Constant language: optimizing exposure time to the language by providing maximum input
- Positive reinforcement: rewarding children with praise at every level of participation and skill to foster a positive, can-do attitude toward language learning.
Multi-Level Learning
Small classes of 4-8 children are grouped by age, rather than language level. This ensures that each child is challenged at his or her own pace, benefiting from individualized attention in a multi-level environment.
Small Groups:
During a session, each teacher works with a small group of 4-8 children. Children benefit from a vibrant group dynamic, playing team games and creating a group call and response echo to reinforce language goals. The small group size also allows for individual attention and language practice tailored to each child’s level.
Individualized Learning:
In our multi-level setting, teachers tailor their prompts and expectations of responses to challenge each child at their own level. Beginners hear simple yes/no, X or Y questions: “Do you want an apple or an orange?”, and answer back non-verbally, or with a one-word or very simple responses: “Apple!”. More advanced students are prompted with open ended questions: “What would you like to eat?” and respond with fuller sentences: “I would like an apple, please!” Some students eventually take the reins, asking beginner peers simple questions: “What kind of fruit do you want? Do you want an apple or an orange?” while practicing the interrogative structure.
In this way, a teacher can accommodate and challenge each child at her own level in the context of an age-appropriate activity. Thanks to the range of levels in any group, children are exposed to simple and complex language models through “peer partnerships” and always see the next level to reach for.
Peer Partnerships:
In all sessions, children are encouraged to interact with one another using the foreign language, not just with the teacher. Newer or younger students have the benefit of peer models: hearing friends speaking the language in a Language Stars program motivates the beginner socially as well as cognitively. The more advanced learner is put in a leadership position and builds skills and confidence while showing what she knows. Rather than a teacher-centered environment (where only the teacher speaks the foreign language), Language Stars is a peer-partnership environment where children also learn from each other.
i+1:
The concept of i+1 provides the foundation for successful multi-level immersion language learning. i+1 is a concept pioneered by Lev Vygotsky, who believed that social learning leads to cognitive development. More specifically, he talked about what he coined, "the zone of proximal development," which described the space of learning potential between what we know and what we have yet to learn.
Linguist Stephen Krashen took this theory further with his “Input Hypothesis.” Krashen promoted the importance of language input in language learning, positing that input should always stretch the learner — give input + 1 step more — to move the learner from what they know into the zone of what they can learn, optimizing his or her potential.
Using the principle of i+1, Language Stars teachers constantly present children with language input with a stretch as their skill develops. Teachers model the language at the child’s current level, and then at a slightly higher level, to give him something to reach for. Before long, the child will find that his “i” level has shifted higher into the proximal zone. From there, the relative challenge and learning increases.
The Language Stars Learning Ladder
In our Kids Only programs, each child's progress is tracked using the Language Stars Learning Ladder™.
Language Stars' curriculum is designed to engage young learners and teach them basic conversation skills over several years. Our program tracks their progress up the Language Stars Learning Ladder, as children build new language skills at each Learning Stage. Progress up the Learning Ladderis correlated to the number of weekly immersion hours, and will vary by child. With consistent, ongoing immersion, a child will gain a deeper proficiency.
In a fun and stimulating setting, young children are able to easily absorb a second language much in the same way they absorbed their mother tongue. Typical progress up the Learning Ladder takes children through the listening stage, the repetition stage, the spontaneous speaking stage, and a last stage during which they develop their proficiency by expanding their language from using common basic phrases to their creating their own original sentences. Throughout their language learning adventure, children at Language Stars will also develop comprehension skills as they receptively integrate each new phrase, sentence or structure.
In their first few seasons, children will progress within the Repetition Stage:
- Listening: internalizing sounds, structures and intonation patterns within the first two seasons
- Repeating Words / Repeating Sentences in the first season.
- Repeating Sentences / Using Single Words Spontaneously within the second season.
In their first and second year, children will develop their verbal mastery to include an increasing number of language structures, within the Spontaneous Speaking Stage:
- Using Single Words Spontaneously / Using Key Phrases Spontaneously within the first year.
- Using Key Phrases Spontaneously / Creating New Sentences within the second year.
In their third year and beyond, children begin to experiment with the language to develop their conversational proficiency:
- Asking Questions / Creating Complex Sentences / Expressing Past and Future Events over the course of three to four years.
Second language acquisition stages mirror first language acquisition stages beginning with an initial "silent" period of listening as the learner absorbs the sounds, structures, intonation patterns, and vocabulary of the language, followed by period of babbling as the learner tests out the new sounds and rhythms of the language. Just as toddlers build a repertoire of single words and then begin to put them together into simple sentences, so do second language learners build their speaking skills by building simple two and three word phrases: I want cookie, my shirt blue, etc. As exposure and skill increase, these simple utterances take a more graceful form: "I want a cookie, please," or, "My shirt is blue." Verbal development grows from one-to-two word utterances, to simple sentences, to global "key" phrases, to more sophisticated, creative speech. Children at Language Stars learn languages just as children learn their first language by being stimulated by natural language input and engaging context.
