Teaching a Child a foreign language – good or bad?

Dear Readers,

This is a question I often have to answer. Parents are worried about children who don’t speak English yet, who have speech delay, can’t differentiate colors after 24 months and other concerns……they are afraid a foreign language will make the situation worse or will bring a problem to their children.

NNELL and our website: www.easylearnlanguages.com lists thousands of articles which defend the early introduction of a foreign language to a child, proven  not to be only beneficial but instrumental in early reading, math, reasoning and other skills which were more developed in children exposed to foreign languages in early age.

My students, we currently have 150 enrolled in our programs have demonstrated those studies to be true and their learning process to say the least, have brought a joyful and educational experience to them.

Next time you decide to give a gift certificate to a child on their birthday, think of that!

For more information on classes and programs, please visit our site or a school in your area.

Claudia Krusch

Director of EasyLearn Programs

Winter Classes

Dear Parent, Grandparent…

Are you home with children, looking for something different to do? I have been thinking about the same thing, so my son inspired me to offer more playtime educational foreign language classes to help parents bring children to an educational activity this winter!

Our two new programs: Spanish and Legos and Las Ninas offer the best in play time, building a foundation for a foreign language, block by block, using toys.

If you far from one of our locations, I have some advice on how to bring a foreign language to your little one:

Set up an indoor picnic, search for food names on the web, some pages have the pronunciation included, to ensure you are giving your little one the right knowledge, play while eating in Spanish, Portuguese, Italian…..

Set up an indoor play time with balls, play soccer, basket ball, pass the ball, using numbers …..

I hope that will keep you busy and your children happy!

For more information on our classes: 856-848-8870 or www.easylearnlanguages.com

Saludos,

Claudia Krusch

Spanish and Legos- building the foundation for learning a new language

Dear Readers,

My own son loves Legos and has inspired to do some research on some existing programs in other areas which use Legos as a powerful tool to facilitate the learning process. That helped me bring my new program to life! We will be offering a brand new approach in teaching a foreign language, building vocabulary as the child builds with Lego pieces…..

Basic vocabulary will be introduced using the blocks as stimuli. Parents who homeschool children can use Spanish books and start the vocabulary building using the blocks. They will build houses when learning about them, build cars and toys when learning about it, people when learning about body parts and the parent/teacher is the facilitator to bring  the vocabulary to life while the children are playing.

Please parents and teachers tell me what you think about our new program and if you would like to print a free pass to a trial offer.

Program starts in two weeks!

Saludos,

Claudia Krusch

EasyLearn Programs Director

Spanish and Children: a powerful combination!

Dear Readers,

I have been working for children for more than 10 years now and they never cease to amaze me! Anything can happen when you are working with little ones! I could write a book on my great experiences with them! Some stayed on my mind like the little 3 year old Spanish student who looked at a paper tree, which I called the magic tree, I told him she would talk…….., el arbol magico, and he said, Ms. Claudia, this is a paper tree…..why do you think it’s magic? or the other little four year old Spanish student in NJ, who looked at me and started talking about moon craters, when I asked what do you see in the sky???Or the 14 m old girl who did not speak English, but started speaking Spanish during the classes and then English afterwards!

Working with children and those experiences gave me inspiration to use their daily magic “tools” to create brand new programs. We will be offering two new programs: Spanish and Legos ©, building a foundation to a great foreign language experience! and Joy to the world© – learning a foreign language with music. Both classes will offer a four week program filled with hands on experience, teaching children to make association between new vocabulary and legos and the second will teach children holiday songs and games, using music only……

If you are a parent or teacher and wish to use some of the concepts used to create the classes, I will be happy to share with you and bring the joy of a creative foreign language experience to many other little ones!

Abraços,

Claudia Krusch

Director of CK Translations and EasyLearn Programs for adults and children

Spanish Halloween activities for children

Dear Readers,

I would like to share some of the activities we have used during the two weeks prior to Halloween.

I would not recommend talking about dia de los muertos with ages 14m-5 years old……we use some of the traditions without naming cemeteries or showing skeletons.

14m-36m

Toss the pumpkin

materials

10 plastic pumpkins

basket

You will instruct the children to line up and toss the pumpkins inside the basket.

Objective: new vocabulary: calabazas – pumpkins

review numbers.

3-5years old

candy corn bingo

Make bingo sheet with candy corn picture and use candy corn to mark the numbers. Children will love it!

5-7 years old

Black cat on the wall

Cat picture

Velcro

Print a cat’s pic and color it many different colors and ask children to match cats to circles on the wall, saying the color in Spanish.

Objective: Follow up activity for color.

We need to make the Halloween experience fun for the children, those activities listed can be done at home as well.

Authentic materials sometimes don’t reach the children and bring a barrier between young minds and the language itself.

Have fun using the activities, it’s Halloween!

¡Dulces o travesura!

Claudia Krusch

CK Translations and EasyLearn Programs.

For free bingo sheet, e-mail me privately.

Italian for children- a new chalenge to be conquered

We recently received an overwhelming amount of calls asking for Italian classes for children! We are happy to announce that we will be offering two new classes starting October 27th, 4pm for ages 3-5 and 6-9.

We are fortunate to have a native speaker teaching the classes at our West Deptford location, bringing South Italian flair to our award winning children’s program.

Parents are also taking classes with their children as a new way to interact and have fun together. We currently have 6 families taking the Parents and Mommy and Me classes with us.

When parents realize the importance of introducing a foreign language to a child in early age, they open the doors to a new world of possibilities! Yesterday a mom said, Nathan has been taking Spanish classes since he was two and now he is interested in starting a second language! That always amazes me! Especially because Nathan is one of the students who demonstrate the highest rate of retaining the information received. So maybe I will be teaching him Portuguese as well in a near future!

Please post your comments, experiences with second language teaching and learning. I would love to hear your comments and questions!

Saludos,

Claudia Krusch

Easylearn Programs Director

Children and Foreign Language

Dear Readers,

I will be talking about FAQs asked by parents. This week’s question is how early should a child be introduced to a foreign language?

My experience in teaching 12 month old children and my son and all studies in this field point to the conclusion that there’s no better time to introduce a foreign language than at an early age, when the brain and phonological system are still being developed.

I advocat the theory which defends that there’s a limit for brain development and that by the age of 7, 90% of our brain development is completed.

I personally think that parent interaction and making the experience fun and nurturing are the best ingredients to early childhood learning in all areas.

If you want to learn more, ask questions here, make comments, talk to me!

Saludos,

Claudia Krusch

Easylearn Programs now offering foreign language birthday parties in NJ.

www.easylearnlanguages.com

Free Portuguese Story time in South Jersey

Dear Readers, Moms and Dads,

We are happy to announce, after the amazing success of last week’s reading time that we will feature in this week’s free story time for children, the language Portuguese.

The children 2-6 will enjoy a story, song and craft, a 30min fun time, embracing the wonderful world of foreign languages.

When: Saturday, July 25th, 9:30am

Where: 1007 Mantua Pike S# 1 West Deptford, Nj 08096 ( R45, on the other side of LA Fitness)

I hope to see you there!

Claudia Krusch

CK Translations LLC and Easylearn Programs

Free Spanish Story Time in South Jersey

Dear Members,

We’re proud to announce that we will be offering a free Spanish story time for children 2-6 years old at our West Deptford location this Saturday, July 18th, 9:30am. Children will hear the story, do a craft and sing a song.  The story time will bring the amazing world of Spanish to children, giving them the exposure to a foreign language in a fun way!

We usually reduce the numbers of classes in the summer due to my schedule, so parents asked for a little more Spanish time for their littles and we listened! The event is free!

We look forward to seeing you there. CK Translations LLC – 1007 Mantua Pike S# 1 West Deptford, NJ 08096 almost in front of the new LA Fitness on R. 45.

Saludos,

Claudia Krusch

Easylearn Programs director

Summer in Spanish

Parents have always asked me to include a summer class in our regular programs. Summer is a fun time, when children play, so teaching Spanish in the summer, means adding Spanish to fun activities children love!

I hope you enjoy my vocabulary list and suggestions:

El Sol – Sun

La Playa – Beach

La Sombrilla- the umbrella

La crema – the lotion

La arena – the sand

El Castillo- The castle

El Mar – The sea

El Calor- The heat

A few activities which can be used when teaching summer and beach themes are:

*Use colored sand and have them cover the word playa for example

*Buy precut fish craft and have them put it together, teaching fish and other sea animals

*Buy plastic fishing kit, they children will love to go fishing and learn about water and animals

*Beach Ball can be used to be passed, each student will need to say a beach word in Spanish when you stop the song

I also use some songs such as, vamos a la playa, la bamba, que calor to bring some flavor to the activities.

I hope you enjoyed my suggestions, please post your comments and suggestions.

Claudia Krusch

EasyLearn Programs

Director

-For more information on summer language programs, call 856-848-8870 or log on www.easylearnlanguages.com