Bilingual program built on greater exposure.

ENVIRONMENTAL INFLUENCE ON LANGUAGE ACQUISITION: Comparing Second and Foreign Language Acquisition of Swedish

This article explores the influence of the learning environment on the second language acquisition of Swedish. Data were collected longitudinally over 1 year from 35 university students studying Swedish in Malmö, Sweden, and in Melbourne, Australia. Three areas were investigated: grammar, pragmatics, and lexicon. The development of grammar was analyzed within the framework of Processability Theory (Pienemann, 1998, 2005). For the pragmatic analysis, the learners' production in a gap-filling task was measured against answers from 100 native speakers. A scoring system was devised to enable comparisons between learners and native speakers. The lexical analysis was based on a word association test. The results show that the grammar developed similarly in the two groups, whereas differences between the groups were found in pragmatics and lexicon. This variation is explained by differences in target language exposure.
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/123346007/abstract

Le Beaumont's English programs are activity based, involving the usage of a much larger vocabulary and language patterns. English is learned as a living language, in the rapidly changing play situation.

The heightened interest in English makes children more motivated in school. A Primary 4 student not so strong in English enrolled in our English program, twice a week, for a year. She came 3rd among some 150 students in the whole year during the final examination in the prestigious Hennessy Road Government Primary School