English Courses for Very Young Learners
Our Very Young Learner English courses are cross-curricular and are concerned with the complete development of your child.
At Shane, our English courses for Very Young Learners (aged 4 to 6) are designed to lay a strong foundation of English, whilst providing an enriching and fun learning experience for the students. Rising Stars, the latest series by Saxoncourt Publishing, is a comprehensive language course written to not only develop studentsâ English ability but also provide an immersive, well-rounded educational experience.
Each book:
- Presents new vocabulary and grammar within interesting topics that motivate the students to speak in English.
- Builds on previous learning to continually develop the studentsâ language skills.
- Encourages students to develop personally and socially with dedicated character education lessons that enable them to interact with their classmates and teacher in English.
- Teaches phonics. Beginning writing is taught using TPR (total physical response) to maximize the language learning potential of the activities.
- Teaches maths in English, helping students to use English to talk about maths.
- Enable students to progress towards a successful transition into elementary school level language lessons with a solid base of learning and the ability to confidently and fluently use their English.
Unit Structure
Each unit in the Rising Stars series follows the same structure:
- Key Vocabulary: teaches the key words and introduce students to the grammar focus of the unit.
- Talking Time: allows the students to use the key words and grammar in a less rigid manner, encouraging participation and expression in a variety of ways.
- Phonics: lays the foundation for reading through phonics practice at a manageable pace.
- Writing: allows the students to practice pre-writing skills and develop the fine motor skills necessary for writing.
- Maths: develops basic numeracy skills whilst learning in English.
- Review: gives students a chance to review and reinforce learned language patterns.
- Each book also includes lessons on character development as well as arts and crafts.
Pacing
The Rising Stars series of textbooks was written to allow for a thorough exploration of the topics and grammar patterns:
- Each Rising Stars book contains 32 lessons providing a minimum of 32 hours of tuition.
- New material is introduced in every unit and practised using a variety of interactive, fun activities.
- There is ample time for review, allowing students to re-use known language fluently and confidently.
Age Appropriateness
The Rising Stars series was developed with very young learners in mind:
- Each book uses attractive and fun illustrations to engage students and allow them to conceptualize meaning.
- Each lesson’s content has been selected to provide an appropriate level of challenge to the students, without being excessive. This allows the students to use the target language fluently and with confidence.
Repetition for Retention
Everything the students learn is repeated at optimal times so students can best remember what they have learned.
Book Progression
From Book 1 to Book 6, the Rising Stars series will consistently develop studentsâ English ability with graded and age-appropriate activities:
- Key Vocabulary: students will learn valuable language through graded vocabulary sets. Students begin with basic themes such as the classroom and my body in Rising Stars 1, and progress to more complicated themes, such as the 5 senses and helping others in Rising Stars 6.
- Talking Time: students will progress through basic greetings such as âWhatâs your name?â, to more complicated grammar; âHow many big mountains are there?â
- Phonics: students will progress through letter recognition, matching sound values, to recognizing and pronouncing blended sounds.
- Writing: students will develop key fine motor skills through a graded progression of pre-writing activities.
- Maths: students will progress from number recognition (1- 20) to basic counting and writing (1 â 10) skills.
