Dr. Peter Beron - Private Primary School

“Dr. Peter Beron” Private Primary School

- Do you speak English?
- Yes, of course!

     How much “Yes” is it and is it “of course” indeed? This question is not modern any more – knowing English is an everyday necessity. It is claimed that having command of a foreign language is beneficial to the orientation in mathematical tasks as it develops the ability to think on a “superlinguistic level”. Are our children on a first name basis with mathematics as they can speak English since they are 10? Check by yourselves!

Chaff!

One egg boils for 5 minutes. How many minutes do we need to prepare 7 boiled eggs? (answer – 5 min.)

     It is a well-known fact that children who cope with their mother tongue well (those who at the age of 4-5 dispose of a rich and varied linguistic model, who at the age of 7-10 find no difficulty to cope with grammar, phonetics and syntax) acquire foreign languages faster than the others.

In any case it is worth studying a foreign language in childhood because children can have a success that is hard to repeat in a later phase of development. Studying a foreign language in childhood is also important for the general intellectual development. The child already knows that the language is a dynamic, living, changing system (you may be overwhelmed with emblematic phrases in English by your child – Give me 5; b-connect; to surf; to check one’s test, etc.).

     The encounter with a foreign language in childhood is a premise for cultural openness and becomes the basis of the motivation for studying foreign languages in general… …Now that I have spread the introductory notes it is only proper that I “open the door to the kitchen” of English teaching in “Dr. Peter Beron” Private Primary School.

     The preparation for acquiring English starts as early as the kindergarten period. When children are at the age of 3-6 in order to study a foreign language it is necessary that they can think abstractly and have cognitive skills that are not well-developed at this age. At that stage our children listen, orientate themselves in the melody and rhythm of the English language. They dispose of 5-6 phrases and 10-20 words from their daily round. The basic knowledge begins to be acquired in “0”, 1st and 2nd grade. The main grammatical categories and language structures are mastered in the final part of this process. Between 3rd and 4th grade our students have already two certificates for command of the English language (Basic and Elementary), which are given to them by the Pitman Institute. In 6th and 7th grade we already start to give children basic knowledge in geography, history and biology, we fight the heavy artillery of grammar (Past Perfect, Sequence of Tenses, Direct and Indirect Speech) and we can confidently declare that we can speak English. Certainly, as much as it relates to other subjects it also relates to foreign languages that children speak, write and command the grammar at different levels. This gives a general presentation of the adopted skill and its excellent realization. It is not a mere chance that in 1999 a student of our school (not bilingual by family origin) defended the Basic level at the international Pitman examination for the first time in Sofia and even the whole country. In 2005 it was again a student of “Dr. Peter Beron” School – Velko Velkov from 4th grade, who defended the Intermediate level. There is no analogue as concerns not only the age (10) but also the excellent result.

     Thereby we can proudly answer – Yes, of course! We can speak English. Some may say it bravely and swaggery, other may be more humble and shy, and those who are not yet confident – they have to remember that a language is being studied the whole life. If you have spent the first fundamental 7 school years here you have a perfect grounding and you are well prepared for the uneasy start in life. I wish a successful school year to all students, teachers and their families.

Some seconds for fun:

If you can decipher the message in less than 10 seconds you are great! UR2 (narisuwano e bonbonche) 2B4got10

Curious facts

     Today the people on our planet speak more than 3000 languages but only 13 of them are used by more than 50000 people. Because of that large number of different languages many of us have to study a second language so that we could communicate with those who do not speak our mother tongue.

10 languages that are spoken by most people

1. Mandarin (Chinese)
2. English
3. Russian
4. Spanish
5. Hindi
6. Arabic
7. Portuguese
8. Bengali
9. German
10. Japanese

     On 15 November 1837 Isaac Pitman published his system-guide for phonetic writing, which was later used for transcriptions and in the phonetic writing systems. He lays the beginning of the correspondence courses teaching. The contemporary distance teaching begins in 1963 in Great Britain.

Top 5 of the universal languages:

- the language of music
- the language of dance
- the language of conventional symbols (road signs, indicative sign-boards)
- the language of mathematics
- the English language

     This is called a polyglot: Cardinal Giuseppe Mezofanni (1774-1849) used to translate in Latin from 114 languages and 72 dialects and he could speak 39 languages.

     Girls – study English! The Queen of Great Britain and North Ireland Elizabeth II is considered to be the richest woman in the world. By April 1993 she owned about 11 700 000 000 dollars. Her Majesty is among the most eminent traders in…weapon.