The aim of the project Bilingualism 0-6 is to teach English through the Narrative Format model to children from the age of 3 months to 6 years.
The project is based on the results of recent researches in the field of neurolinguistics. According to these researches if you learn a foreign language before the age of 3, this language will be stored in the same cerebral structures used for the native language. Therefore, later on, the use of the second language will be as “automatic” as that of the first, without requiring an excessive outlay of energy from the cerebral structures.
In order to teach English to children of such young age we have taken Hocus & Lotus and their magic adventures in some Public kindergartens and Pre-schools in Rome.
The “magic lessons” have been modified to adapt the model to children in Kindergarten (from 3 months to 3 years children). These children listen to the Sing Along CDs and watch cartoons at school; moreover they sing along in the mini-musical and imitate the gestures during the “magic lessons”.
The parents are also kindly requested to make their children do their “homework”. Their “exhausting homework” consists of listening to the CD with the Sing Along and watch “The Adventures of Hocus & Lotus” cartoons every day!
In order to get as many children involved in this project as possible, we avail ourselves of the precious collaboration of Psychology students, who are properly trained and choose to do their undergraduate apprenticeship following the principles of the model and teaching English to children in Kindergarten and Pre-school.
A five-year longitudinal research is also related to this project, aiming at evaluating the linguistic competence of those children who have had the chance to participate in the “magic lessons” during the first five years of their lives.
Their competence will be compared to that of Italian children of the same age who are learning English with other methods and to the linguistic competence of children who attend bilingual kindergartens and pre-schools.
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