English for all

Isn't it amazing how most children attempt to learn English but fail (86% fail). Their failure isn’t because children are bad at acquiring languages; children are natural born language learners, starting even before they are born.

The reason for their failure to learn English is because: to learn a language the right conditions need to be there. In a normal household those circumstances are naturally present, which is why all kids pick up their first language. And children who are blessed to be in a household where two languages are spoken will pick up both of them with ease!
The rule is: Whatever language children are exposed to every day, they will pick up.
But the problem is: Most children don’t have access to a native English speaker every day. And that’s why most of them fail.

My name is Ayman Fox, and since my masters in applied linguistics I have had one question in my mind: How do you create the right circumstances for the 1 billion non-English-speaking children, so that they can pick up English like they pick up their own language?
This is not an easy question to answer, which is why hundreds of millions of children fail to learn English every year in school.

To answer this question I poured over hundreds of research articles concerning when language learning starts and the differences in children’s development. I considered my own language journey learning Arabic as an adult. I compared that to my children and how quickly their speech developed when they were young. Even though their development had been natural, I considered the tools that we had used with them to help support their language growth. I considered language storage in the brain and how links in neurons are made.

Then one day, the apple dropped!

The results of my research and observations are contained in our app: Picture Lingo. 

If you have children and want them to pick up English, please download our app and give it a go.

Ayman