Community Village

What is the Learning Village?

The Learning Village is an image-based English as an Additional Language (EAL) programme for pupils in English-medium schools. It follows a blended approach, with a comprehensive online programme supported by offline, teacher-directed learning. Beginning with everyday survival language and phonics, it leads onto specific curriculum content.

It includes:

  • 10,000+ words and phrases, for speaking, listening, reading and writing
  • Image-based learning, to assist learners who are unable to read in their mother tongue
  • Excellent support for Special Educational Needs learners
  • Techniques to help learners support themselves
  • Support for blended learning and for self-study

The Learning Village is fun! It's a vibrant, interactive world where learners visit places, play games and make virtual friends - while learning English.

The Learning Village helps teachers

The Learning Village is designed to integrate with a learner's classwork curriculum. It ensures that EAL arrivals grasp the fundamentals of English and learn the necessary curriculum vocabulary and language structures. For teachers, this saves time and makes differentiation much simpler. In addition, detailed assessment is built into the system - you know exactly where your learners are on their learning journey and how to target their needs.

The programme includes three Learning Journeys:

  1. Survival Language: for learners who are new-to-English, covering vocabulary and language structures
  2. Phonics: teaching reading through sounds
  3. Curriculum content: introducing the vocabulary needed for the most requested areas of the school curriculum

Learner pathways are set by the programme and customised by teachers. Progress in each journey is carefully tracked by software and results automatically assessed.

The Learning Village team works in partnership with teachers. Our programme is shaped by their needs and by good practice in our member schools. All members can make content requests for new lessons, flashcards and activities.

Find out more about the Learning Village

What makes the Learning Village different?

  • The Learning Village is all about learning through images. We've built the platform for all learners, including those who can't read or write in their home language. Our images are clear and accurate and provide a truly immersive learning experience.
  • Our image-based programme provides inclusion for all, no matter what a learner's level of literacy of what language they speak (maybe an unwritten language or a less widely translated one).
  • When required, we also offer translation into up to 100 languages.
  • The Learning Village is specifically designed for schools and for teachers. It targets vital curriculum areas and enables integration into the mainstream classroom.
  • The Learning Village keeps teachers in the driving seat: they know their learners and their classrooms best. A wealth of resources are available for them to choose from - and they are responsible for setting, customising and altering their students' learning pathways.
  • The Learning Village is a carefully targeted programme. One size doesn't fit all - each student has individual language learning needs and the Learning Village allows each to follow an individual pathway.
  • The Learning Village keeps learners focused. They're not abandoned to a wholly online programme at a difficult time, but are steered through it by their teachers who can engage with them at many stages to support their learning, ensuring they make continual progress.
  • The Learning Village is a mix of offline and online learning. Offline resources for small-group teaching and for learning at home support and complement the online programme.
  • The Learning Village provides solid linguistic foundations. Instead of just simplistic translation or basic vocabulary, each lesson introduces a vital sentence structure, often embedding technical language in useful sentence patterns.
  • The Learning Village foes beyond survival language and phonics, to introduce curriculum vocabulary. This can be pre-taught in small groups before lessons in mainstream classrooms.
  • The Learning Village offers continuous, accurate, printable assessments of each learner's progress and ongoing requirements.
  • The Learning Village is rich with resources! There are hundreds of games and scaffolded flashcard resources supporting learners in moving from understanding meaning through speaking and listening to reading and writing. Printable EAL resources scaffold learning from word and sentence level starting points, up to whole texts, for multiple areas of the curriculum.
  • The Learning Village is great fun for learners! Whether they're taking part in a multi-player game with other students around the globe, accessorising their secret hideaway or castle island, or simply exploring a whole new interactive world, students are learning all the time - and enjoying it!

Speaking, listening, reading and writing

  • The Learning Village models correct pronunciation and requires the learner to respond orally through its speech recognition feature. A structured approach build confidence in speaking and ensures learners articulate their new language quickly.
  • The Learning Village's listening activities are delivered in sentence patterns (language chunks) to support understanding at a level learners can repeatedly access - engaging them properly.
  • Not all learners can read - in any language - when they arrive at school. The Learning Village is an image-based programme that builds up to reading in a carefully scaffolded manner. It is suitable for learners from any mother tongue or language background, regardless of their literacy level.
  • The Learning Village writing activities match the appropriate stage of learning and focus on the use of writing in real-life settings.

Try a free trial

Our offline resources, customisable learning pathways, and comprehensive online programmes make The Village and The Islands a superb resource for all those teaching new-to-English learners.

Register for a free trial and introduction to the Learning Village today – for the best support for teachers and learners.

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