Immersion Project Program

Language learning at HoK kindergarten is facilitated through our Immersion Project Program.

In this program, all academic topics throughout the year are covered through “projects” with singular themes. For example, projects can be built around themes as simple as water, the body, bugs, or anything else relating to a child’s natural interests and experiences.

 

For each project, children learn and understand the central theme they are studying through their interaction with various activities. As an illustration, a class doing a project on bugs may make an ant farm and fill it with different foods to find out what ants like to eat. For another activity they may learn about an ant’s body parts by using clay to create their own ant sculptures. When used in conjunction with the one-person-one-language approach,activities such as these become central to language learning at HoK.
As a project is carried out, each child’s teachers take turns facilitating activities in their native languages. Through this, students are exposed to all in-class languages during the course of a project. In general, because a child is able to understand the central theme or concept of a project in at least one of the languages of instruction, this consistent context allows them to grasp similar vocabulary and concepts during the activities held in the other languages as well.

 

This is largely achieved because of every child’s natural human need to communicate. As a result of this need, children are constantly and actively constructing knowledge and understanding the learning process through questioning, proposing ideas, making suggestions and engaging in any other way they see fit. During a project, this strong will, excitement and desire to engage with their caregivers and peers frees children from their inhibitions and encourages them to participate in an open dialogue about activities, regardless of language constraints. In this way, the immersion project program provides students with a fun, non-intimidating opportunity to learn a new language.

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