Now tots what I’m talking about!

An educational programme that offers an exciting new way for pre-secondary school children to learn foreign languages will launch its first franchise in Cork tomorrow.

Lingotot is based on solid early language teaching research and has been developed to focus on what kids like to do, and then to do these activities in another language.

The classes are fun and interactive and are designed to give young children an early positive association to languages, benefitting from their innate ability to pick up another language whilst in the process of understanding the stimulus from the world around them.

Following tomorrow’s launch, venue-based Spanish classes will begin in Midleton from 11 November with more languages and venues in East Cork to follow.

Languages taught through the programme will include Spanish, French, German and Irish with sessions taking place in nurseries, community classes, primary after school clubs and holiday clubs.

Lingotot will offer weekly sessions in each specific age group from tots to junior infants and all the way to sixth class.

Tutors are all native speakers in their respective languages with teaching experience and have full insurance, TUSLA certification, GDPR training and first aid training.

To celebrate the launch, parents and their children are invited to a free taster session which will take place at Sage restaurant in Midleton tomorrow from 2-3pm.

Speaking in the lead up to the launch, Sofia Colás, Director of Lingotot Ireland said that widening children’s opportunities in the future by learning another language is now more important than ever.

“We are thrilled to be offering our fun language classes in East Cork where we hope our experienced language tutors will make a very positive impact in the community, supporting children and parents locally, and offering such a key life skill,” said Ms Colás.

She continued: “Aside from all the benefits, our focus remains on the children’s motivation and making language-learning fun. I’ve been able to see first-hand the positive impact interactive teaching has. In Ireland, most children are immersed in language learning at secondary school which in our view is too late. Creating stepping stones for them at primary level in a fun and relaxed way, makes that transition later on a much more natural one.”

Lingotot will also be supporting the recently launched Languages Connect Sampler Module which facilitates 500 participating schools to introduce their pupils to a modern foreign language of their choice or Irish Sign Language (ISL) over six weeks.

Lingotot East Cork will start operating Spanish classes for all ages up to age 12 on 11 November.

For more class information, contact eastcork@lingotot.com or visit lingotot.com/ie.