Learn English naturally – with your own Native Coach

Children can pick up English early through listening, repeating and playing, similar to how they learn their mother tongue. Research shows that an early start is worthwhile, but it is not a “deadline”. A large study with around 670,000 participants found that the ability to learn the grammar of a second language remains high until around age 17 (Hartshorne, Tenenbaum & Pinker, 2018). Starting early mainly means more time, more contact with the language and more enjoyment.

According to research, the key factors for success are the amount and quality of contact with the language, often more than starting age alone (Genesee, 2014). This is exactly where we come in: regular, playful contact with a native English speaker.

An expert report from the German Youth Institute confirms this: young children can fully acquire two languages in an age-appropriate way and distinguish between them well, following the language of the person they are speaking to. Whether a language becomes stronger or weaker depends mainly on how much contact a child has with it (Reich, 2010).

Concerns about the first language suffering have also been extensively studied in school immersion programmes: children develop strong skills in their second language without any apparent disadvantage to their first language (Genesee, 1983; Cummins, 2000).

We follow the principles of immersion research: your child spends as much of their time with the coach as possible in an English-speaking environment. Our Native Coaches speak and understand only English with your child. This gives your child a genuine reason to speak English themselves, much like a baby learning their mother tongue.

Our coaches grew up in an English-speaking country or have lived there for at least 10 years. This matters to us because the quality of language input influences language acquisition (Unsworth et al., 2019).