Home Languages

Southbank Hampstead parents recently attended a workshop focused on the importance of home languages. As the Southbank community is from all over the globe this was a hands-on topic for parents who speak other languages at home.

EAL (English as an Additional Language) teacher, Anita Bamberger, explained: "During the workshop, we considered the importance of maintaining the home language through emails, comics, books, trips abroad to visit family and friends and TV. Learning English at Southbank is like learning your first language; naturally and in context quite different to the more formal way in which most of the people present learnt a foreign language. When students have a strong mother tongue they are then able to transfer their literacy skills to the school language."

For more information about this topic, visit: www.bilingualism-matters.org.uk