Fun English & Mandarin is an association created for the purpose of improving local residences, especially children’s level of English and Mandarin languages in the region of val d’oise, France.
The objective of the association is to build the foundations of bilingualism/trilingualism in children, through music, sounds, rhythms, videos, games, TPR, and above all, to form their desires to learn the common languages of the modern world and the willingness to open oneself to other cultures.
The class is conducted in a fun and collective way for children from 3 years old by qualified and passionate teachers. Each week, a new theme is discussed and the workshop revolves around songs, games, mimes, book-readings, drawings and scene simulations.
In this very point in human history, English is the dominant language. Giving our children the opportunities to learn English is not "abdicating in the face of an English tsunami. It's about making sure they know how to swim." Once they are given the opportunities to obtain this essential life-long skill from an early age, they will blossom; they will master the must-have surviving tool for the benefits of their professional and personal lives in later years.
French, once the language of high culture, is losing its ground in a global tsunami of English usage in the fields of international commerce, science and renovation, research and development, education, employment, tourism and even in organisations such as EU & UN. With the world becoming smaller by the nanosecond, a common vehicle of communication has become a necessity. For better or worse, English has taken that place.
Rankings have consistently shown France trailing its European neighbours in mastery of English language. According to recent EF English Proficiency Index, among native speakers within the 27 European Union countries, France ranks 22nd on the Test of English as a Foreign Language. A 2012 European Commission study of over 50,000 students aged 14 to 15 similarly found France far behind 12 other European countries in mastery of English.
The common opinion appeared to be that France’s educational system is a major cause for the poor performance. Students in French public schools begin a second language in primary school and often receive about 9 years of foreign language education. Still, many high school graduates struggle to express even the simplest of thoughts in English. Why?
Well, as it stands:
•Teachers often have unsatisfactory levels of English
•The language of instruction is typically French rather than English
•Students spend very few hours per week in contact with the English language at school.
•French academia places a larger focus on grammar over authentic communication.
•Most students experience embarrassment, frustration, and classroom mocking.
It is already scientifically proven that children at this age actually have a strong potential to acquire almost an infinite number of new information, especially when second language learning is concerned. Studies by Harvard University confirm that the creativity, critical thinking skills, and flexibility of the mind are significantly enhanced if children learn a second language at a younger age. The younger the learner, the more they can adopt pronunciations and recreate new sounds. After the teen years, the brain changes and makes it extremely challenging (if possible at all) for an adult to learn a foreign language.
And, besides, bilingual children perform better in other tasks that call for a shift in attention.
Behind Fun English & Mandarin is a passionate team of specially trained teachers. They are all native English-speaking or fluent bilingual/trilingual and university educated.
She holds a Master degree in Law and a Diploma in Public Service Interpreting (Mandarin/English Law). She is a Member of the Chartered Institute of Linguists, as well as a certified interpreter in the UK. Her two children are raised multi-cultural multi-lingual environment( French, English and Mandarin).
She is currently teaching English in her local schools as an initiative. With the help of other teachers, they have achieved a great success: almost every child enjoys learning English; they are excited and eager to learn; they have developed strong interest in learning other languages and cultures; they manage to acquire a great amount of knowledge in English in a short period of time.
The class is conducted in a fun way. Especially for younger students, the majority of the lessons are given in the form of Total Physical Response, together with help from video clips, songs, story-telling books, flashcards and games.
We will also take advantage of the development of the modern technologies by using various educational social media such as English learning mobile games, Skype videos, voice dubbing applications and other tools.
Young children do have relatively short attention spans and do best when alternating activities which require sitting still and those that allow for physical movement. Our teachers make lessons stimulating by incorporating movement into lesson plans to hold attention.
Though a detailed lesson plan is prepared before each session with specific target learning points and strategies in mind, our teachers pass on the knowledge of English in the process of playing with children, with them unaware of the actual learning taking place.
Positive Teaching is about giving children lots of praise for good behaviour and keeping disapproval and reprimands to a minimum, to manage and shape behaviour, create a positive classroom culture and make sure lots of teaching and learning is done.
Our teachers give simple and easy instructions in English. Teaching the language through the target language increases the amount of exposure the learner gets to it, and the opportunities they have to communicate in it, and therefore to develop their control of it.
Classes are organised with maximum 10-12 kids in each class. This allows our teachers to have both sufficient monitoring, modelling, interaction and to conduct smaller group conversations and activities that enable both comprehensible input and output.
We focus on classroom activity, speaking practise, conversation and practical application rather than heavy theory and grammar. "success is measured in terms of the ability to carry out a conversation in the (target) language."
We organise English Corner speaking practice both locally and internationally through online platform as well as distant speaking practice with native speakers via social media and language exchange program with UK partner schools.
Our English classes are designed for young learners from the age of 3 up to 18 years old.
Location is to be confirmed.
You can contact us for registration of a course or making general enquiries
By telephone : 0650833947 By Email : Junfan@#funencn.com (Replace # with @)
Each class lasts one hour and it is organised once per week throughout 34 weeks in an academic year.
Our classes are organised in small groups with max 12 students per class.
300 euros per year, membership fee, tuition and material fee are included.
We offer 10 % discount for families with two or more kids registered at the same time.
Yes! Class schedules will be announced on our website or you can contact us for details.
Registration for English classes (2018-2019) starts now! If you are interested,
please register now! We will get in touch shortly.