When we opened our first language schools, we thought that effective teaching was all that it took. Soon it turned out that we needed to learn business, team management and marketing skills as well as thousands of other things. Today, with over a dozen years of experience, we are much wiser. Teddy Eddie is more than just a coursebook – it is an effective and efficient system which may form a basis for a real business. Apart from high quality content and ambitious approach to teaching, we offer a number of organisational tricks, management and supervision concepts, tools for building customer satisfaction, and much more. Teddy Eddie has been present at our schools for many years now and we cannot imagine how we would cope without the program.
– Diana Kubica, Magdalena Duchnik
Teddy Eddie is not just another „way of teaching English to children”. It’s much more! Our method meets the needs of all parties: children’s, parents’, teachers’ and school managers’.
Why do children love Teddy Eddie?
- dynamic classes
- engaging songs
- stories that appeal to children’s sense of humour
- eye-catching gadgets
- “mummy, daddy, look what I can do” being proud of newly acquired skills
- children love Teddy Eddie and his smelly sock
Why do parents love Teddy Eddie?
- ambitious method
- complete progress reports
- tips how to practice English at home
- on-going contact with parents (meetings, e-mails, open classes)
Why do teachers love Teddy Eddie?
- quick and easy preparation for the classes
- ready-made materials
- excellent methodological support
- simple tools to monitor teaching progress
- guarantee of didactical success
- satisfaction- you see the results quickly
Why do school managers’ love Teddy Eddie?
- business supported with experience
- fair partnership
- business coaching and training
- teachers’ and course supervision system
- ready-made promotion plan
- complete promotion package available online
%
Children's satisfaction
%
Parents' satisfaction
%
Teachers' satisfaction
%
Language schools owners' satisfaction
Key features of the Teddy Eddie method
It’s much more than just fun and listening comprehension
Teaching children English is so much more than just having fun and listening to English songs. Measurable effects of teaching with Teddy Eddie are vital and achievable.
Children are immersed in the language
The English language is not composed of single words presented with pictures. What counts is context, full sentences and playing with different structures. A combination of all these features makes it possible to be fully immersed in the language.
It appeals to today’s children
The course contents must appeal to modern children. They are interested in contemporary songs, humour, and a computer-game or cartoon style and not just singing birds and cute little butterflies. Today’s children want to be cool.
Easy lesson preparation
Teachers should focus on the quality of in-class activities and parent interaction, which is why lesson preparation should be as effortless and time – efficientas possible.
Parent information
Parents should not be put under pressure but to be kept satisfied, they must be informed, inspired and involved. They should not be pushed upon but 30 involved in an organised, systemic way. As parents are our customers, their satisfaction is equally important as that of their children.
Organisation tools
The person in charge of a school’s courses and teaching staff is provided with a number of tools for optimising course organisation and management.
The Teddy Eddie method draws from the following 3 fields:
Linguistics
Language is not a collection of individual words and rules but a complex set of linguistic structures such as idiomatic phrases, expressions and texts. Our decisions concerning course content and the order in which individual structures are introduced to Teddy Eddie learners is based on a thorough analysis of these linguistic rules.
Pedagogy
In the context of foreign language teaching, success is measured first of all by students’ ability to effectively use the linguistic structures they know. There can be no effectiveness without fluency. Teddy Eddie helps achieve fluency by combining two seemingly opposite approaches. On the one hand we embrace “language immersion”, which promotes acquisition, while on the other hand we adopt a behavioral approach to facilitate the conditioning and consolidation of learned language reflexes.
Psychology
Children experience language with all their senses and through repeated interactions. It is essential to let them benefit from a favourable environment, offering multisensory stimuli which involve both brain hemispheres and respecting the natural diversity of children’s intelligence profiles as well as their unique learning styles. Teddy Eddie is designed to satisfy those needs.
Characteristics of the Teddy Eddie method
Text based
Contains a large number of texts in the form of stories, rhymes and songs which are used as a source of vocabulary and phrases.
Natural approach
Classes are conducted in a manner which helps a number of English structures to be absorbed in a way similar to mother tongue acquisition.
Audiolingual method
Repetition and consolidation, special emphasis on listening comprehension, as well as language and response automaticity.
Listening comprehension oriented
Focus on the development of listening comprehension as the basis for language learning in the years to come.
Total physical response
The verbal message is reinforced with movements and gestures which facilitate understanding and memorising.
Communicative language teaching
The foreign language is used in a natural, instrumental and spontaneous way, for example while playing shop.
Trial and error
Focus is placed on effective communication rather than structural or phonetic accuracy.
STUDENT’S BOOK
SECRET BOOKLET – picture booklet
EDUCATION PACK
Course recordings
PARENTS’ GUIDE
Current research shows that children achieve better results if they maintain contact with the language at home as well as in class.
To facilitate this home-school link, the Teddy Eddie package includes a set of course recordings which a child should listen to at home several times a week. All that a parent needs to do is to press the PLAY button on a player.
It is enough to play the recordings in the background while the child engages in other activities. It is this additional, systematic exposure to the target language that yields beneficial effects over time.
The course components include many educational games which can be played at home.
The Parents’ Guide includes all the texts which are used in class (stories, songs, and rhymes) as well as the vocabulary from each chapter together with the translation.
Optionally, parents can take advantage of extra ideas for using the student’s book, course recordings and a secret booklet to play with the child and thus provide additional language practice.
In our experience, every form of parental involvement in the learning process has a hugely positive impact on learning outcomes. Teachers and Programme supervisors will offer plenty of assistance, provide support and give specific suggestions as appropriate.
