Dear Readers,     

Instead of just sharing holiday posts with suggested activities like we normally do, I decided to share my personal discovery and journey through Christmas traditions of my own country, Brazil and Hispanic countries, when I research the topic to bring to my classes.

My first stop will be the Shoe on the Window tradition!

The story I was told when I was a child was that Santa would come at night and drop off toys in the shoes left on the window….because of the safety issues, we would leave them outside our doors and Santa would leave the toys!

There is a song which has remained in all my wonderful Christmas memories! Deixei meu sapatinho

So, to bring this tradition to my son, I explain to him, since it is warm in Brazil, there are no stockings, we have shoes and I ask him to place shoes outside his door and every Christmas morning, Santa leaves stocking stuffers in them, along with new slippers! Fun! Divertido!

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