An innovative, highly effective programme transforming EAL teaching and learning across the world…
What’s the Learning Village?
The Learning Village is a blended English as an Additional Language (EAL) programme from Across Cultures, for new-to-English learners aged 6 to 14 years (secondary content coming soon!). It takes a systematic approach to induction, pre-teaching and gap-filling, aimed at supporting schools through small group and independent teaching.
It’s an innovative, image-based programme, in which all lessons and activities begin with images. This makes it suitable for learners of any language, including those who aren’t literate at all. It’s also ideal for those not yet secure in reading and for learners with SEND.
The Learning Village offers induction to English, a full phonics programme and comprehensive curriculum content lessons. It’s highly flexible: each learner follows their own journey, customised to meet their needs and to match their own school’s curriculum.
The Learning Village blends independent learning with small-group teaching. Through its vibrant online ‘village’, it builds a confident community of learners and friends, as new arrivals share learning and compete against one another.
Most importantly, the Learning Village is great fun! Learners range far and wide on their journey through the village, from a sea to the mountain tops, with animations, fun locations and an underground cave just waiting to be transformed with the rewards they’ll gain!
Three learning journeys
Lessons are split between three strands of learning:
- Survival language: new-to-English to intermediate lessons, including the basics of vocabulary and language structures
- Customised curriculum content: vocabulary and language structures for the curriculum
- Phonics: a full phonics programme, teaching reading through sounds
Teachers plot a unique pathway for each EAL learner through their chosen areas, allowing them to pre-teach content, gap-fill and consolidate learning.
Grounded in both academic research and years of EAL teaching experience, the programme follows a unique methodology, with an interactive, collaborative cycle of learning.
“The Learning Village materials are of an excellent quality with clear language progression. The programme works very well as a teaching tool.”
Michelle Wain, EMA Adviser
London Borough of Havering
Resources and tools
The Learning Village is superbly rich in resources! There are downloadable flashcards for every lesson, in-built grammatical help and games and activities for every topic or structure.
Sentence Analyser
The Sentence Analyser lets teachers create bespoke ‘substitution tables’, based on the vocabulary and language structures their learners are studying.
Sentence Visualiser
Drawing on a cache of thousands of words, the Sentence Visualiser allows teachers to create sentences in images (and translate them into over 100 languages).
A whole range of bespoke flashcards and other resources can be generated from the Visualiser, taking the hard work out of EAL resource creation.
EAL Scaffolding Resources
EAL Scaffolding Resources take learners one step at a time through core survival language and curriculum topics, moving from word level right up to independent writing.
Each resource includes an original and imaginative text.
Tracking and analysis
Working through artificial intelligence, the Learning Village analyses, assesses and targets appropriate language-learning areas for each learner. A ‘live learner feed’ gives a minute-by-minute breakdown of progress. Individual lesson and weekly reports show overall progress and challenges. Teachers can send messages of praise, print certificates of achievement and issue virtual rewards.
The Learning Village works!
In just four months, a Year 3 learner in a Learning Village school made progress in her reading comprehension age of 3 years and 1 month. In five months, a Year 9 reader made progress of 2 years and 6 months in his comprehension.
See more in our Impact document here.
“You’re revolutionising my classroom and allowing me to make significant improvements to the lives of these children.”
Kamil Trzebiatowski, EAL coordinator
teacher, trainer, speaker, education blogger
We’re award-winning!
- BETT Finalist 2020
- GESS Education Awards Finalist 2020
- Teach Primary Award Winner: October 2019
- Educate ‘EdWard’ Applied Learning Award (an award for research-based evidence of impact of learning): January 2019
- Education Resource Award Finalist: March 2019
- British Education, Training and Technology Award Finalist: January 2018
Join the Learning Village!
- Includes 10,000+ words and phrases, incorporating speaking, listening, reading and writing
- Ideal for learners unable to read their mother tongue
- Saves significant time preparing lessons
- Assesses and tracks learner progress
- Provides support for blended classrooms or for self-study
- Supports differentiation for EAL learners across the curriculum
- Offers excellent support for Special Educational Needs students
- Builds confidence – and communities!
