ENGLISH LADDER OLD | Babington Education

COURSE DESCRIPTION

English Ladder is an integrated skills English language programme specifically designed for the needs of Hong Kong children. The skills covered include reading, comprehension, writing, grammar, speaking and listening. For Steps 1-3 (kindergarten years), Dolce sight words are built into the programme. Students will progressively build up their sight words each lesson to help improve reading fluency. Upon mastering the sight words, students should be able to read about 75% of your average children’s books. Step 4 is a bridging class for those students who needs a little more help before they reach the Step 5 (primary 1) level. We also try to include a fun activity in our lessons to engage and motivate children. These fun activities will be related to the current theme and can be arts and craft, cooking, games, interactive whiteboard, clay making or anything kids will find fun!

CORRELATION

All our materials are custom developed in accordance with the needs of the student. Our reading list is aligned to international standards (Fountas & Pinnel, DRA and Reading Recovery), our grammar syllabus is aligned to local standards and our forms of writing (poem, reports, story telling etc.) are also aligned to local standards.

COURSE STRUCTURE

There are 10 Steps (levels) in the English Ladder programme. Each Step consists of 3 modules. Each module has 15 lessons. Each module will have an review that will revise the entire module and this will be followed by an assessment that would serve to grade the performance of each child. We understand that all students have a lot of homework and stress from school already, so we don’t require students to revise or prepare for the assessment at home. All preparations will be done in the lesson. Think of the assessment as a marker for the teacher, so that he/she knows the area of weakness for that student and can make necessary adjustments in the following module to improve these weak areas. Following the assessment will be a progress report and a certificate of completion.

FEEDBACK MECHANISM

Unlike other centres, we don’t separate the teachers to the parents. On the contrary, we encourage our teachers to build a close relationship with all their students’ parents so that our teachers have a better understanding of their kids’ problem areas and needs. All of our teachers are available (most of the time immediately after the lesson) and more than happy to update the parents on their child’s progress.

TEACHING PHILOSOPHY

All our teachers are carefully selected, trained and certified by Ruth Miskin Training to deliver Ruth MIskin's RWI programme. We use passion, positive reinforcement (praise the good to influence the naughty rather than scolding the naughty), encouragement and energy to actively engage all our kids and promote English learning. And how are we so effective? Because we love what we do!

ASSESSMENT & EVALUATION

All programmes at Babington are based on ability and not age as we believe in promoting growth on an individual basis. So we never chase levels and certificate, we always focus on improving the student. As such, all students are required to complete a free assessment that will determine which Step is the most suitable. The whole process of assessment and briefing takes about 30 – 40 minutes. During the briefing, the teacher will debrief the assessment and fully explain the structure of the programmes. You will see for yourself the curriculum for the assigned level and that of the next so you can see the path your child will grow to so that both the teacher and parents expectations are aligned.

Quality Assurance All our teachers monitor each of their students closely and they all meet with the principal on a weekly basis to discuss the progress of each class as a whole and also the progress of each student. As such, we can quickly identify any problems early on and can develop a plan of action to help solve these problems before they develop further.