Kids&Us parents
12 things you must know
> How do you expect children to learn?
kids&Us
does not understand any other way to teach English than by playing, singing and doing stimulating activities for each age group.
The different activities are thought to consolidate all that we have been learning while, at the same time, children widen their knowledge . Everything is thought for a reason!
All the activities we do in class are aimed at making children communicate either between themselves or with the teacher.
> What are the objectives of Kids&Us?
From the first day, our method expects children to:
- Have contact with English as it is, with neither changes nor omissions. Our aim is that our students learn the language globally.
- Learn the basic English grammar naturally and spontaneously.
- Be able to communicate.
- Get good pronunciation skills.
- Develop good oral comprehension skills in spite of not understanding the meaning of each word.
- Find the learning process of English fom a general point of view easier.
> What levels does Kids&Us cover?
Kids&Us does not distinguish levels of English, as there are not any levels when we start learning our mother tongue. It would not make any sense when talking to our children to think ‚“he or she is only one year old, so I will only talk pidgin English, and use no verbs. If I use a verb, I'll always use present”. Which would be the result, in this case? 3 year-old children would not be so competent as they are at this age when they speak their own language. They would use a limited and poor language. If this is the way it works in our language and we expect our children to have total control of a second language, why should we do it differently when they are learning English?
Kids&Us is currently organised in 10 courses that take into account the age of the students instead of their knowledge. What we think is stimulating for a 2 year-old kid is not stimulating for a 5 year-old kid, although both start learning English simultaneously and therefore, they start from the same point.
Our courses bear in mind the cognitive development of children at each age.
> How often do children have English lessons?
Children come to class one hour a week until they start to read and write. Then, they come 1 1/2 hours to 2 hours a week.
> Is it enough to come only an hour a week?
Yes, indeed! As long as they listen to the CD daily as explained in our methodology.
> Why is it so important to listen to the CD?
Because a continuous exposure to the language plays an essential role for the learning process. Repeated listening of the CD enables children to record a large quantity of words and structures in their brains. Therefore, when they hear them or deal with them in class, they identify and reproduce them more easily than if they had not heard them before. Needless to say, listening plays a very important role when it comes to accustoming the children’s hearing to understanding and pronouncing English.
> When and how should the children listen to the CD?
Children take a booklet home to colour in and a CD to listen. The CD, or better said, the track they are working with at the moment lasts for about 10 minutes. Every time they are listening to the CD, children colour in or mark one of the animals of the booklet. The CD can be listened at any point during the day and while they are doing any activity as long as they are not watching TV. It is important to find a good moment to listen to it that is the same every day so that parents can incorporate it as a daily routine (during breakfast time, before going to bed…)
> Do parents need to speak English?
No, they do not need to. Parents just need to make sure children listen to the CD every day.
> What happens when children do not listen to the CD daily?
The method loses effectiveness when children do not listen to the CD. Besides, lessons are thought to include activities where children are already familiar with the language that they are learning. So, if a child never listens to the CD, it might be easy for him to feel lost during the class and his or her motivation diminishes.
> How old the oldest children can be to start learning English with this methodology?
The oldest a student can be to start learning English with Kids&Us is 7 years old. We also offer new courses for children who start learning English out of school when they are older than 7 years old but, these courses are traditional English courses.
> Do they learn the same as they learn at school?
They do not learn the same as they do at school at Kids&Us. Our methodology has nothing to do with the way they work at school.
Our methodology is based on a total language immersion and on a global learning process. The grammar structures and the vocabulary contents are not learnt in an isolated way but are in context.
On the other hand, we make the most of working with small groups to teach lessons where oral expression and comprehension become the basic pillars.
> Why do they start reading and writing in English later than at school?
We have seen that writing and reading in English is carried out in a much more successful and easier way if children have had a very rich oral input beforehand. In fact, when we are learning our mother tongue, we do not speak, write and read simultaneously. Firstly, we learn our mother tongue and then we learn how to read and write. We believe that it is more valuable to enhance comprehension and oral expression during the first years.