Q&A: Flemish pre-schoolers get ahead with English classes

Why did you decide to introduce English classes?

We started last September when our teaching assistant, Anja, returned from China, where she had been giving English lessons to small children. We decided to give her the opportunity to try it out here. We already see that the children have learned a lot in the last six months, with just 20 minutes a week of singing, playing with toys and looking at flashcards.

And why English in particular?

We already teach French to the pre-schoolers from the age of four. As for English, the opportunity was there, and it’s a world language that is used across the global economy. It’s very important in a multicultural world that people can express themselves well in other languages.

Many schools in Flanders are very strict about the development of Dutch as a first language and even ban other languages from the playground.

Well, that’s not my opinion. The children have lessons in Dutch the whole day. It’s only in the fifth or sixth grade that they start to have “real” lessons in other languages. But the younger the children, the better they are at learning and making the sounds of the language. In the beginning, they are just imitating and not translating back into their own language.

How have the parents and kids responded, and would you recommend the programme to other schools?

The parents are very happy and very surprised to see how much the children have learned. We have had a lot of interest about it from new parents, and the children love it when Anja comes to the class.

The results we have seen are really good. Now we are going to roll it out to the older children in the primary school. As for other schools, I would certainly advise them to do this. It’s wonderful to see how quickly the children learn the language.