Children's Language Program

The Chatterbox Kids Language sessions will introduce your child to a foreign language in a fun, exciting environment.  High and low energy activities have been designed to capture your child’s imagination and to stimulate their desire to learn through:

• Art and crafts
• Songs, Music & Movement
• Natural Sciences
• Role Play
• Story telling
• Games
• Drama

Curriculum Principles

First of all, learning another language is fun. Simple as that.

Children learn best through:

• Play
• Discovery and interactive questioning
• Creativity
• Inclusiveness and sensitivity are integral
• A variety of language and cultural activities are essential

Curriculum Design

Activities (Group & individual)

• Music and rhythm
• Movement and motor skills
• Manipulative play
• Numbers
• Art
• Role play
• Listening
• Speaking

Music & Rhythm (Group)

Music and rhythm encourage the development of cognitive skills associated with auditory memory, sequencing and motor skills and occur with singing, dancing, marching and playing percussion instruments. Linguistic development is linked with seriation (loud/soft; big/small; fast/slow). Social skills include working together, leading and following.

Movement and Motor skills (Group & Individual)

Through music, games and stories, activities such as hopscotch, skipping, jumping, dancing, bending, stretching, throwing and catching encourage language development.

Manipulative play (Group & Individual)

Using a variety of materials will encourage linguistic use for:

• classifying and sorting by colour, size, shape and function.
• matching by colour, size, shape and function

Numbers (Group & Individual)

Use of numbers can be incorporated into music and rhythm, creative play, games, storytelling, time telling and body awareness.

Art (Group & Individual)

Creative arts should come from natural spontaneity. They will mostly be individual and self chosen, but generated from other activities. They may include: painting, drawing, cutting and pasting, modeling, constructing and printing.

Role Play (Group & Individual)

Role play can emerge from story telling, songs and individual play. It can include using puppets, toys, flannel board, dress-ups and acting.

Listening (Group & Individual)

Listening is an integral part of all interactions with teachers when receiving and following instructions, listening to songs and stories, rhythm patterns and social interaction with other children.

Speaking (Group & Individual)

Speaking is related to all activities in identifying objects and characters, answering questions, participating in story telling, playing games and role play.

Themes

The themes are based on the interests of children aged 3-5 years. All of the activities are included as elements of the curriculum themes. For example, using the theme "Myself and other people" would incorporate the singing and action of "Head, shoulders, knees and toes"; recognising and calling out the number of fingers held up by the teacher; using blocks and soft materials to build colour and number patterns; colouring in pre-set pictures of people from different lands and occupations; using role play to replicate domestic scenes such as meal times.