We are proud to be one of only 11 bilingual kindergartens commencing in Victoria in 2024, offering Spanish within our 4 year old program for the next 4 years. Our language teacher Paty has not only brought much experience delivering language, but also teaching experience.
Early Childhood Language Program (ECLP)
The ECLP at Brentwood preschool is a great opportunity for our 4-year-old Kinder kids to experience bilingualism in an early learning setting. The focus of the ECLP is to provide children with rich engagement of Spanish language in all interactions during our session.
Children are engaging with the language in a variety of ways, such as reading stories, interacting together in the room, singing, dancing, roll playing, painting, building, and even cooking. Additionally, while engaged in any of the learning experience around the room indoors or outdoors, many unique opportunities are provided for children to hear and use the language verbally.
Research consistently shows that learning another language from an early age brings a myriad of benefits to children, especially in Australia where English is not the first language of many families. In early learning settings, many children are exposed to a rich cultural and linguistic diversity, either from other children or their educators.
Beyond the advantage of bilingualism, early language acquisition enhances cognitive development, helping children to think, explore and problem solve, fosters cultural appreciation, improve academic performance, strengthening cultural identity and foster deeper connections with different cultures and languages.
As Paty has stated, there are many benefits to language learning regardless of the language being taught, and many skills that can be transferred to learning new languages.
• Children are introduced to alternative ways to express themselves and gain a more in-depth understanding of different ways of knowing, being and belonging,
• Language learning can develop skills that are not strictly ‘linguistic’. These include creative and critical thinking skills, being able to tolerate not understanding something, building persistence and resilience skills, developing negotiation and higher order thinking skills.
• Developing a richer understanding of how languages work,
• Strengthen children’s self-esteem and cultural identify.
These skills not only provide a strong foundation to support children in learning languages going forward but also in building stronger local communities and preparing children for a more globalised and connected world.