Australia's present and future is multilingual.
Every child in Australia should grow up at least bilingual.
Languages education starts before school life and should continue throughout.
(Updated 28-03-2010)
Join our wonderful team!
The German Australian Playschool in Canberra is looking for a German-speaking teacher and assistant teacher to join us for 3 days a week, starting in February 2011.
Approx 20 hours per week, Wednesdays to Fridays.
Email Lisa on spielwelt@homemail.com.au
One of the presentations at last year’s seminar on raising bilingual children at Melbourne University discussed Languages Activism and the different ways in which parents can contribute to enhancing language learning in the wider community. Kimmba Bilingual Learning Playgroups are an outstanding example of such an initiative, and here is the story of the person behind its success.
Marisha Theeboom is an experienced, trained Mandarin teacher and volunteer community worker since 1987. She has worked with a variety of ages, cultures and in different continents whilst involved with a large charitable organisation that spans Taiwan, America and South Africa. She holds a Bachelor of Arts Honours Degree from University of Cape Town, R.S.A.,1996.
She married an Australian Pilot in 2000, migrated to Melbourne and has three daughters. As a migrant herself, she is aware of the difficulties involved in settling within the local community. Thus she has turned her love of teaching and community work into establishing Kimmba Bilingual Learning Playgroup Inc. Kimmba has been established for migrants and local residents to be able to gather together and understand each other through a fun and loving playgroup environment. In doing so, she hopes the establishment of Kimmba Bilingual Learning Playgroup enables more migrants from differing cultures to benefit by retaining their self-identity and at the same time develop proficiency in English language skills.
Marisha has developed her own bilingual education program for young children, called Jo Jo Bilingual Education Program and started the first Mandarin bilingual learning playgroup at Taiwanese School of Melbourne in July 2006. She has further studied and obtained a Certificate in the Professional Development Program in Second Language Teaching Methodology for Teachers in Ethnic Schools (Chinese Phase I) from RMIT University November, 2006.
This year Marisha is expanding Kimmba so that more children and families can be exposed to wide range of languages and cultures. She is opening a new Center in Prahran that will be available for students ranging from 0-6 years old to come from 1 hour- 15 hours a week to learn either Mandarin, German or Spanish. The Prahran center is set up as an early learning center with two fully qualified and trained teachers in every room. This center is hopefully the first of many to come as Marisha is passionate about exposing children and families to different languages and cultures to help build positive relationships with everyone in the community.
To find out more , please visit http://www.kimmba.com.au/
The Australian Indonesian-Language Schools Association (AILSA) Inc is pleased to announce to all parents who see the benefit of a bilingual environment for pre-schoolers’ development that a bilingual (Indonesian/English) transition program for children aged 3-5 years will start in Term 1 2010.
The program will operate at the pre-school premises of Queanbeyan South Public School from 9 am to 3 pm on Monday of each week during term. The daily fee will be $30 per child.
For more details and to put your child on the waiting list, email admin@ailsa.org.au with the following information: Child’s name, date of birth, parent’s name and address.
Tags: AILSA, Bilingual Pre-school, Indonesian
This very informative article is published by Learning Links, an “Australian charity and non-profit organisation formed to help children who have learning disabilities, difficulties and developmental delays, and their families”.
The link below leads to references on the role of maintaining a learner’s first language in relation to the acquisition of English.
http://www.tesol.org.au/Issues/Place-of-First-Language
“The Australian and international TESOL fields argue that the maintenance and ongoing development of a student’s first language (L1) provides learners with a solid base from which to acquire an additional language.
Awareness of the positive influences associated with supporting L1 development is particularly important for young learners. Older learners actively draw on knowledge of their first language and its structure, conceptual and content knowledge held in this language and their L1 literacy skills when learning a subsequent language. However younger learners do not yet have this depth of knowledge to draw on and without appropriate support they are at risk of failing to acquire full proficiency in either their first language or the main language of school instruction.”
Thank you, Mandy Scott, for this information.
Tags: Place of first language
Mandarin mandarin Bilingual Centre’s program is specially designed to meet the second language acquisition needs of both preschoolers and primary school Mandarin learners.
Our classes are small with 5-6 children per class and divided into 4 age groups. Classes are held in a home like environment with beautiful surroundings to make your child comfortable and ready to learn.
Your child will have lots of fun learning Mandarin in a great atmosphere where they will be immersed in the Mandarin language.
Mandarin mandarin Bilingual Centre is located at 783 Bourke St, Redfern NSW, Australia 2016.
Read more at http://www.mandarinmandarin.com/.
Dr Mandy Scott
In an article last year I discussed the multiple benefits that young children can gain from learning a second language. These benefits include adding to communicative and intellectual skills, and laying the foundation for successful learning of further languages later in life.
This article introduces readers to a growing area of interest among parents – bilingual playgroups.
Over recent months I have visited three language-based playgroups in the ACT. All are providing a bilingual experience for children and highlighting the fact that speaking more than one language is a natural and fun thing to do.
Tags: Playgroups
AlphaTykes is an Australian company with a unique and successful Australian-created teaching concept.
We have created a comprehensive language teaching system that is exciting and enjoyable for both children and parents. Our curriculum includes activities in all lessons such as singing, music, story-telling, games and art to capture the imagination of every child.
We have a co-ordinated system of story books, flash cards, activity books, CDs and online access. You can actually make it as much fun at home for the kids as it is during the lessons! Your whole family will be exploring another language in no time.
We have 3 centres across Brisbane which teach French, Spanish and Italian to children aged between 18 months – 12 years.
