Our story
An English Program Created by Experienced Child Educators and Researchers.
After many years of teaching English as a second language to Asian children, the desired results remains elusive. This frustration and disillusionment led a group of English teachers, educators and researchers to begin the search to find a solution. Today that budding idea has fully developed into the Budding Bean Immersion English program.
For more than 10 years, a group of English language researchers and educators who have been teaching English in Asia especially in China, Japan, Malaysia, Vietnam and other Southeast Asia countries, noticed that the existing methods used to teach English to Asian children as the second language has not been effective. Many researchers focused on how to deliver a language effectively from the teachers’ perspective but few focused on how children from the ages of 3 to 12 years old can acquire English as a second language effectively.
Many issues which contributed to the ineffective teaching and learning of English to Asian children were identified, one of which is that there is the lack of an English environment to support the learning and the acquiring of the English language. Unfortunately, no such effective English as Second Language (ESL) materials were available and suitable for children in the market.
Numerous studies were conducted to answer the following questions:
- How can 3 to 12 year old children acquire English as a second language effectively?
- How can Asian children learn the language effectively from local, inexperienced English teachers?
- Under such circumstances, will our children be able to learn foreign languages in our own country with local teachers and still be able
to achieve the desired results?
- Will our students be able to speak the language like a native speaker without the help of native English teachers?
The answer is very obvious … Not possible in a short time frame.
We also asked ourselves, “Is there a solution to help our local teachers who have minimum training and experience to increase their productivity (quality and efficiency) in order to produce the desired results?”
We also understand that a very common issue in most schools is the lack of experienced teachers. Therefore it is important that Budding Bean create a methodology that is easy for teachers to duplicate with the same desired outcome. With that in mind, a standardized and effective method of teaching English has to be created.
As a result, more in-depth researches were conducted in an attempt to understand how children learn a foreign language, in this case English, effectively.
After many years of study and experimentation, we discovered and developed the Four Stage Learning Progression Approach (4SLPA), a methodology which is proven effective in acquiring a foreign language.
We also believe that acquiring English as a second language is not only meant for the wealthy but should be made available to everyone. As such, we at Budding Bean truly believe in offering quality English education at an affordable price.
We believe in being socially responsible. We have given our assistance to charitable projects and have provided training to teachers who have volunteered to teach the less fortunate children because we believe that good education can positively change lives.