English Classes and Instruction

The 3-year-old program focuses on social/adaptive behaviors: belonging to a community, language development (stories, songs, poems, vocabulary), cognitive and motor skills. Activities include outdoor play, movement and music exploration, dramatic play, language expression and communication, story sharing, use of manipulative toys such as puzzles and blocks, and creative expression through exposure to a wide variety of materials and art activities.

The 4-year-old program builds upon the social/adaptive and other skills, with increased expectations for children to become more independent and able to work within a group. They enjoy a greater variety of experiences with a focus on fine motor activities such as cutting, drawing, painting and other pre-writing activities. They engage in elaborate dramatic play, taking on roles and acting out familiar scenarios. They also have the opportunity to work on social skills and developing their self-concept.

In the 5-year-old program, children continue to develop stronger language/communication, vocabulary, and social skills. This allows them to function better both within groups as well as independently. They collaborate more in play and on projects. Children at this age learn letters, high frequency words, sounds and easy word recognition, rhyming, and poetry while engaged in oral language-rich activities.

Students are assigned to their classes according to their age and level of English proficiency. In the Weekday and Saturday programs, we administer a language level test on the first day of classes for students ages 7 and older to evaluate efficiently and effectively the level of students’ listening, speaking, reading and writing proficiency in English. Students 6 years and younger are generally placed into classes by age, except in special circumstances in which a significant difference exists between the language level of the child and his/her peers.

ASB English Language Center uses a variety of resources to support instruction. While teachers use modern texts published by Cambridge and Oxford University Press, no one textbook, resource or program can fulfill all the needs and objectives of a well-planned lesson. Teachers supplement their lessons with a variety of resources to deliver a rich and meaningful curriculum to the students in their classes.

• A Focus on Topics/Themes as the basic unit of instruction. Grammatical structures, content-related vocabulary, oral fluency and written expression are integrated into thematic lessons.
• Activity-based (“learning by doing”) as opposed to traditional lecture-style presentations. Teacher-directed minilessons are followed by activities that engage students in a dynamic, interactive way through cooperative learning tasks.
• Differentiated tasks/outcomes – Teachers meet students’ individual needs by differentiating tasks and outcomes. This can be done using a variety of techniques, including open-ended tasks that enable students to respond to content at their own language levels and/or setting different learning goals for individual students based on their current language abilities.
• Fun, engaging, challenging activities – Our teachers believe that activities should be engaging, challenging, yet doable, and “personalized” whenever possible.
• Cooperative learning – We emphasize language learning in pairs or groups, whenever possible, to encourage oral fluency and dialogue.
• Emphasis on speaking and listening skills – Teachers prompt oral practice before new material is introduced. Students are continually encouraged and reminded to use English in the classroom. Teachers use only English in class.
• Syllabus and Textbooks – Although a section or selected units of a textbook are used in each class, teachers are encouraged to be creative and/or supplement the book and exercises. Our textbooks are used as a guide, supplying appropriate input and structuring of the main grammar points.