Español (Spanish) also called Castellano (Castilian) is a Romance language
that originated in Castile
, in Spain. There are approximately 407 million people speaking Spanish as a native language
, making it the second-most-spoken language by number of native speakers
(China’s varieties or dialects
Very young children have an amazing ability to aquire language. Children learn to speak during the first two years of life. In those 24 months, the baby is able to identify and name objects. After 2 years, children begin to form short sentences and simple questions can gradually advancing in the knowledge of the language to be able to construct more complicated, longer sentences. Their speech up to five years old will be similar to adults but with a much smaller vocabulary.
But how can you help build up their knowledge? To start off with, a small game can help identify the letters in Spanish and so begin to form short words, use all the resources available to them as videos on YouTube, the library nearest to your house ask for a book that can show you the basic introduce to the Spanish for little ones or borrow a basic DVD how to learn Spanish, etc.. There are many resources, at the beginning should not be frustrating for parents, the advantage is that not only the child will begin to learn the parents too.Note from the Editor: Don't forget that Lingotot classes support your child by helping them learn a second language in a very natural and interactive way. We give parents lots of support too so you can learn together!
The awards are organised by the Evening Gazette and The Journal in association with the North East Chamber of Commerce. NECC chief executive, James Ramsbotham, said: “We have an enormously successful business community that has achieved so much this year. The North-east Business Awards provide the perfect stage on which to recognise the ground-breaking work by companies across the region."
We are incredibly proud to have been shortlisted and are very much looking forward to the ceremony. Wish us luck!
Many highly qualified linguists toy with the idea of completing a PGCE and becoming a teacher of MFL, yet they worry about a number of issues: the cost of the course; more time away from employment to study; no guarantee of a job at the end of the course; fierce competition for teaching jobs; horror stories about paperwork, verbal abuse towards teachers and general poor behaviour in schools.I trained as a teacher and taught in secondary, middle and primary schools in the UK and overseas before founding Lingotot. I LOVED teaching, especially the more challenging classes. Ask all my family, friends and ex-colleagues - I was about the most enthusiastic and dedicated teacher you could get! I never thought in a million years I would give up teaching in a "proper" classroom. But then I had two little babies and everything changed. So I started my little Lingotot classes as a way to keep teaching and earn some extra money. I wasn't prepared for many things when I set sail down the self-employment route. I didn't expect the classes to be so successful, I certainly didn't expect to love the mechanics of running my own business. But the biggest surprise was that I fell totally and completely out of love of traditional classroom teaching.
I do miss the pupils (well most of them!) but I certainly don't miss the politics, paperwork and power games. Oh yes, and the marking!Instead I have a job I love, teaching really fun and relevant lessons to young children. I get to share that with their parents too, it's a lovely family affair. When I go into a school to teach
, the children are excited and look forward to their very interactive classes. Aside from the teaching I get to set my own timetable and work the hours I want to, meaning I never miss a nativity play.
Don't want to work on Mondays? No problem!So I refer back to my opening point. If you're a graduate (or maybe you're not but you speak another language fluently), why would you spend £9,000 for a year of hard graft doing a PGCE, plus all of your living costs for that year, with no guaranteed job at the end of it (and even if you get one the NQT year is even worse!)? You could come and join Lingotot as a franchisee instead. You get to teach immediately with no daft targets, marking or demanding headteacher. The fee is half the cost of a PGCE, you get to start earning straight away
1. Effective and Fun. Language learning at school usually revolves around sitting in chairs and teachers providing grammar and structures for children to use. Our programme has been developed to focus on what kids like to do and then to do these activities in another language, with plenty of repetition and structure.
2. Learning through Play. Play is at the heart of Lingotot sessions. Babies and young children learn, grow and have fun through play. Lingotot play sessions help them understand the world and other cultures. Singing songs, reading together and having fun with friends gives them a head start to develop socially and emotionally.
3. English is Not Enough. Our global community means it is vital to be able to communicate with other communities around the world.
4. Early is Better. If it’s introduced early and well, children pick up a second language naturally, just like they learn their mother tongue, instead of learning it in “second language” mode like we do as adults - constantly translating from one language to another in our heads!
5. All Round Educational Boost. Research suggests that children who know two languages can gain an academic and social advantage over those who speak only one. Children have an amazing ability to learn language and this happens best when it is interactive, engaging, child-centered.
2012 was an eventful year for all of us! We’ve witnessed a man jumping from the edge of space, athletes from across the world descend on London for the Olympics, The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, more shootings in America, the death of Whitney Houston, yet more mental weather and we all survived the predicted end of the world!
It’s also been a fantastic year here at Lingotot, so good in fact I had to have a cup of coffee and a little sit down when I wrote a list of everything we’ve done, it’s absolutely loads. I've written a little bit about our achievements under the photos below.
We know that our success is thanks to wonderful and enthusiastic parents, delightful little Lingotots, nurseries and schools. We couldn’t do the job we love so much without you! I’d like to take this opportunity to thank you soooo much for your continued support and wish you all the best for a fantastic 2013.
This time last year I was running Lingotot as a one-woman band and to be honest I was struggling keeping up with the demand. Caroline, David and Susanna joined the Lingotot family in January 2012 as franchisees and so we started to grow. Over the next few months, they established new classes across Newcastle, Tyneside and Northumberland.
In April, I took on the delightful Helen to lead my classes locally and to teach Spanish. She’s done an excellent job and everyone loves her. She’ll be gradually withdrawing from teaching for me to build up her own franchise area and I’m sure all the mums will secretly be cursing when they see me come back!
September was a super busy time for us with the schools starting a new academic year, especially after we were endorsed by some local LEAs and recommended to their primary schools. This was the month we expanded further and welcomed Katherine and Abigail on board as franchisees. They’re both doing a fantastic job, especially as neither of came from a teaching background, but they do share an absolute passion for languages for young children. In September we also took on a mini army of tutors to help deliver our classes.
During the course of the year we also introduced two new languages; Mandarin and Spanish. I fell in love with the sound of Mandarin and have enjoyed playing peekaboo with my little girls. Peekaboo in Mandarin is 躲貓貓 or duǒ māo māo. I think it's super cute as it translates into ‘hiding kitten’ Awwww!
Bring on 2013!
Now at the end of 2012 we’re about to take on some new franchisees both in the North East and in other parts of England. I’m delighted we’ll be introducing language to children and their families across the UK and I’m very much looking forward to an awesome 2013!
My wife and I are both born and raised with just one language - my wife is from Austria and I am Dutch. We met in London, got married in Ealing and we have 3 year-old boy/girl twins.
When our twins were born, we made the conscious decision that the twins should learn both our native languages as well as the 'local language' (English). We felt, that apart from being part of our culture, the importance of our native languages is that our siblings have young children too and we wanted to ensure that the twins would be able to communicate with their cousins and grandparents. We live in the UK so there was never any doubt that the local language would also become an important part of their language repertoire. We speak English to each other and everything outside the front door is in English :)
As we have learned foreign languages at school, due to lack of personal experience, we had to read up on how to raise children with multiple languages. The most obvious choice for us was the One Parent One Language (OPOL) approach. In the process, we learned that many children who learn more than one language start speaking slightly later compared to children who are raised in one language. We have also learned that many twins also have a tendency to start speaking a bit later compared to singletons. One possible reason for this is that they have such a strong bond or connection, that they don't need words to communicate with each other - therefore taking away any 'sense of urgency' to start speaking the parents' language.
Although inexperienced, we were convinced our approach was right for us but, as time went by, there have been instances where others started to question if we were doing the right thing for our kids. Around Christmas last year, some people started suggesting that maybe we should consider dropping one of the languages as the twins were over 2 years old and only starting to mumble their first words. They were all really focused on the vocal part of their own language and didn't realise that the children understood every instruction given to them, irrespective of the language it was delivered in, Dutch, English or German. This was also when we came across a funny 'problem'. When we looked at pictures with the children and they would name something, e.g. a tree, but they call it a 'Baum' (German) when they talk to me, then technically it's incorrect, as they should use the Dutch word instead. However, it's not really incorrect, because they've learned the German word and that should be emphasised as being correct - even by the 'wrong' parent. We found it very useful to say: 'Yes, that's what mummy calls it. Daddy calls it... and your friends call it...'.
Since Christmas last year, so many things have happened. The twin have made up so much ground and are currently speaking multiple word sentences using a wide variety of words in all three languages. They confidently switch languages between talking to mummy and daddy and are perfectly happy to 'translate'. If I ask them "Can you please ask mummy ..... " (in Dutch), they run off towards mummy shouting ... uuhhh ... repeating my instruction in German.
They are in pre-school now where their English vocabulary is booming. It is very funny to see how they are now interacting as they use all three languages. Which language is largely determined by what they are doing at the time. Some games they do mostly with mummy and will be done in German, some puzzles are done with Daddy and will be 'discussed' in Dutch whereas some toys are associated with pre-school so they talk English.
I would love to say we knew exactly what we were doing these last few years. We believed in what we were doing and stuck to it. Some of our biggest challenges were to overcome other people's misconceptions and to figure out which language the children were trying to use. Now, their speech is becoming better, we can distinguish the language easier (very helpful), but ... we are still fluently ignored in all 3 languages.
Babies and young children are like sponges for language learning. They are programmed to pick up any language they hear. This makes a great deal of sense. Babies all over the world are ‘citizens of the world.’ They can discriminate all the sounds of all languages, no matter what country they're born into. They already start to "tune in" to the language they hear more frequently from about 9 months of age. However, their learning power remains high until about the age of seven - take a look at the graph on the left. Michael Gove really needs to consider his plans to make MFL compulsory AFTER age seven!