Learning English for children aged 5-11 years old, their approach to learning through games

When looking for full immersion for kids in Cambridge, look no further as this year with our English teacher Sima Shimi we had a programme that enhanced the confidence in which our children learned in a fun and effective way. This summer we were fortunate to have kids from Greece, Spain and Japan at La Dante. The parents chose us as we have small classes and English CELTA qualified teachers who use a communication method, use realia and lots of role-play. This summer, as the courses were intensive, we decided to get the children involved in interactive video games from the British Council, Learn with Kids site that allowed them to practice memory games, flash cards, tongue twisters, short stories and a lot more. It was such a good feeling to see Shoichiro Todoroki (Japanese) and Javier Villamayor (Spanish) aged 6 learning so fast: they learned numbers in lots of ways from the small ones 1-10 that they learned going up the steps at the school every day to big numbers that they used with British Council games.
As for Claudia (Spanish) and Sakiko (Japanese) aged 9, they were challenged in the group with memory and shopping games from the British Council Learn with Kids. The younger kids got involved too and learned the vocabulary really fast.

The shopping game was very popular of course, they had to use a till to buy toys as well as practicing it with the video game from the British Council Learn with Kids. The involvement of the actual till in the classroom, the toys they liked to buy, the numbers and interactive video games made sure that the kids loved coming over to the lessons, in fact they weren’t lessons in the traditional sense but games, songs and fun based activities with real situations.

In the afternoon, the children spent time at a local Cambridge British school, attending a playscheme where they play action games, do sport activities like rounders and football with British children of the same age. The scheme has been running for the past five years and the results are amazing. The children make friends, build their social skills in English with other children, choose their games as the Playscheme uses a Montessori approach: the children choose what they want to do in the afternoon, who they wish to play with guided by leaders through the day. There are some international children within their groups. All in all it was a successful summer programme this year too and thank the teachers, the kids and the parents for collaborating, see you next summer!!!

What the parents think:
Javier Villamayor:
…what a wonderful time Javier and Claudia had at La Dante in Cambridge! Thank you so much for making possible this wonderful experience for my children!

Atsuko Todoroki:
Sakiko and Shoichiro enjoyed their English class very much, fun based English, nice friends and their teacher was very kind to them. Thank you very much!

English for children: video