Introducing: New Materials for Young Learners
In summer 2024, we boosted our offering for intermediate students with 150 new Conversation materials. Now, we're refreshing our English for Young Learners category with four brand-new courses aimed at level 1, 2 and 3 students, which will be released on December 21st, 2024.
Read on for a brief overview of what you and your students can expect from this change.
What’s changing?
Despite their popularity, not all of our users study Daily News or through free conversations. Younger learners in particular need to start with something appropriate for their age and level.
Until now, our materials for young students in Japan and Korea primarily came from the Let's Go series of books, which covers fundamentals such as the alphabet, greetings, simple topics and basic sentence structure.
On December 27th, however, these Let's Go materials will be removed. Replacing Let's Go, as well as the existing English for Kids course, will be four all-new courses that will do an even better job of addressing the specific needs of young learners.
What’s new?
Our new materials are:
Beginner friendly
The four new courses will cover Levels 1 – 3. As these are aimed at younger learners, none of these courses are beyond the Beginner ranking. For more on our levels, you can check our level guide here, but here's what that means for each of these courses specifically:
- English for Young Learners — Level 1 is aimed at children who are absolute beginners. These lessons cover fundamentals like the alphabet and numbers, as well as very basic vocabulary and phrasing.
- English for Young Learners — Level 2 and English for Young Learners — Level 3 both build on these basics, further developing key skills and building students' confidence. They also introduce simple conversation skills like asking questions and sharing opinions.
- Life with Alex and Maya is based on short stories designed to introduce useful language for everyday life to Level 2 and 3 students and present it in natural contexts.
Visually engaging
Just like our intermediate lessons featuring Emily and Grandpa Gus, the new materials also focus on a set of original characters to help engage young learners.
This time, students will get to know siblings Alex and Maya as well as their family, friends and teachers. Each lesson is accompanied by colorful images that help teach the target language while making the lessons more engaging.
And to keep things fun, a number of lessons also include exercises in which students listen to an original song — though we promise no one will need to perform karaoke!
Easy to teach
As with all of our materials, tutors will not need any additional training to teach these lessons. While you will naturally become better at delivering the lessons as you become more familiar with them, rest assured that clear Tutor Notes mean you can teach them from the very first day without any extra preparation or knowledge.
Wrap-up
We can't wait for you and your students to meet Alex and Maya, our latest effort in providing the best lesson materials possible for both tutors and their students.
As always, feel free to reach out to Tutor Support if you have any questions about these new materials or any others we offer. We hope you have great experiences with them in your lessons, and we look forward to sharing news of more updates in the future.
For more on working with younger learners, check out the following posts:
