The Children’s House French Immersion Montessori program is designed to provide all of the benefits of a Montessori education along with the opportunity to learn a foreign language in a natural context. During the early childhood period, or the period of the absorbent mind, children learn another language most easily and effectively. Second language acquisition through language immersion education ensures bilingualism, promises a native accent, a high level of proficiency, heightened awareness of languages, and an authentic sensitivity to other cultures. Because we realize that bilingualism develops and enriches the mind while also fostering an openness to others by rendering children more flexible and accepting of other ways of living, thinking, and being, we wish to create a school environment in which children’s capacity to acquire more than one language is exploited for their and society’s future benefit.

The Montessori approach to language learning is ideal for acquiring a second language. Through the concrete Montessori materials, comprehension is easy as it is embedded in a context-rich experience. The purpose of the Montessori sensorial and language material is to materialize or make concrete various abstract ideas, concepts, and relationships which can be labeled so that the child can make sense of his world by being able to name his perceptions, the objects around him, and their relationship to each other. A Montessori teacher can enhance his/her presentations with particular language strategies to ensure that the language the children receive is comprehensible and particularly adapted to their language needs, thus enabling nonnative speakers to acquire a second language through the context of their classroom environment with as little difficulty as possible.

By taking the opportunity of a child’s sensitive period for language acquisition, we aim to promote the humanistic ideal of greater social, ethnic, and cultural awareness, tolerance and better communication among multiple ethnic groups. As part of Peace Education, we strive to attain Maria Montessori’s ultimate educational goal of a more peaceful world through greater knowledge and understanding of one another. What better way to decrease the “cultural gaps” and barriers that separate us than to speak each other’s language?

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