by on 11/08/2023 436
A 12-year-old boy in Russia declares he will someday become a pilot for an international airline. A 10-year-old girl in Korea plans to someday work at the International Space Station. A 9-year-old boy in China chats easily with friends from a half dozen countries. A school director in Uganda confirms his community is being changed for the better. An 11-year-old girl in Japan dreams of working at the United Nations. A father in Myanmar expresses gratitude for the opportunities his 6-year-old daughter will have.
What is the common thread in these stories? These are stories of hope, possibilities, and expanding horizons. Hope for something better. Possibilities for a better life. Expanding horizons so individuals dare to dream bigger. These are GrapeSEED stories.
GrapeSEED is more than a curriculum.
Around the world, on nearly every continent, this is our true purpose. English learning is how we accomplish our purpose of enhancing an individual’s life journey. GrapeSEED English helps individuals overcome barriers. When the individual benefits, we all benefit.
GrapeSEED is a research-aligned curriculum that follows the principles of Natural Language Acquisition to build English oral language and critical listening skills in students ages four through twelve. Designed to meet the specific needs of the English Language Learner, GrapeSEED helps students gain confidence and English fluency by using the continual language acquisition processes of exposure, comprehension, use, and reinforcement.
GrapeSEED’s all-inclusive, English-only immersion curriculum uses a controlled vocabulary to develop oral fluency and proficiency, while providing students with all the skills to develop basic reading fluency, writing awareness and readiness, and writing skills.
Tens of thousands of students around the world recognize the benefits of the unique design components and characteristics of GrapeSEED. Our curriculum differentiates itself from other English Oral Language programs by using:
Most ELL programs focus on grammatical structures, substitutions, and explanations rather than on focused vocabulary, useful language functions, learning with comprehension, and practical utilization of concepts and uses. Those grammatical frameworks require students to memorize numerous sets of sentence structures regardless of their practical application.
Following the key principle of natural language acquisition, GrapeSEED students learn to hear and recognize English speech—and to process and speak their thoughts—without having to first think in, and then interpret from, their native language. By making English learning meaningful, GrapeSEED makes learning interesting. By teaching English in the way that children naturally learn (through continuous exposure), GrapeSEED instills motivation and quickly builds fluency.
The GrapeSEED curriculum is based on decades of experience combined with substantial research into the functional-notional learning structure. It utilizes a controlled, progressive introduction of high-frequency words and language functions that are thoroughly integrated into the curriculum with systematic review and reinforcement. GrapeSEED equips students with the skills necessary for complete communicative proficiency—understanding, speaking, reading, and writing.
As students progress through the language acquisition process, they listen to the expressions of language and associate sound with its function. Students begin to mimic sounds until they learn to reproduce the most basic of necessary functions. Therefore, the more students hear language functions (receptivity) and the more they use language functions (expression), the easier and faster they retrieve each language function (fluency) and communicate with known “notions” (proficiency).
To bridge the divide between oral communication skills and language arts, reading and writing becomes critical. GrapeSEED uses a phonics system called “vertical phonics” to give students tools for coding and decoding words. Vertical phonics is very effective because it is not dependent upon vocabulary or word usage. Students simply learn to associate phonograms with the sounds they make, and then they learn to spell and read by assembling and disassembling phonograms. In GrapeSEED, writing skills progress from readiness to assembly, to spelling, to basic sentence practice, to replication of words using appropriate stroke order, and end with students learning to compose simple sentences and short stories.
GrapeSEED is organized into 40 Units utilizing a variety of GrapeSEED teaching components. Using a Teacher Student Interaction delivery method, teachers use engaging, artful instructional components including: Action Activities, Vocabulary Picture Cards, Phonogram Cards, and a rich mix of Songs and Stories. After a specific number of 40-minute class periods, students move to the next Unit. Language acquisition is a process explicitly tethered to exposure, review, and reinforcement. The power of the GrapeSEED curriculum is its comprehensive, built-in system of systematic exposure, review, and reinforcement, resulting in success for all learners.
The student learns to listen attentively to a variety of speakers including teachers, peers, and electronic media and engages actively in a variety of oral language experiences to gain an increasing level of comprehension and aural skills. The student is expected to:
The student speaks in a variety of modes, to different audiences, and for a variety of purposes using developmental vocabulary with increasing fluency and accuracy. The student is expected to:
The student orally demonstrates phonemic awareness and vocabulary development and uses a variety of strategies to comprehend and generate questions about selections read aloud. The student is expected to:
The student develops the foundations of writing. The student is expected to:
GrapeSEED’s Instructional Coaches work with teachers and customers to ensure proven efficacy and maximum results in the classroom. Video-based training courses cover the theories and design that are foundational to GrapeSEED and ‘how to teach’ the key components of the GrapeSEED curriculum. The initial and on-going training and support is designed to prepare and assist teachers on their journey to student success.
Foundation Training
Completed before teaching GrapeSEED lessons, Foundation Training prepares teachers to use the GrapeSEED curriculum and provides the foundational knowledge and skills necessary to effectively use the materials.
GrapeSEED Essentials
GrapeSEED Essentials is an on-demand, online training course designed to equip teachers with the basics of teaching GrapeSEED. The video-based training covers the theories and design that are foundational to GrapeSEED and ‘how to teach’ the key components of the GrapeSEED curriculum, including real classroom examples and tips from GrapeSEED Coaches.
Teacher Support
Teacher support is focused on ensuring fidelity of implementation of the GrapeSEED curriculum. Support could include: Classroom observations focused on identifying areas of success and growth, 1-on-1 coaching sessions, co-teaching, and/or providing a professional learning session to teachers on an agreed upon, specific aspect of implementing the GrapeSEED curriculum.
Lesson Video Analysis & Remote Support
GrapeSEED Coaches will analyze videotaped lessons and provide concrete feedback on how to increase implementation fidelity and effectiveness.
Professional Development
Teachers have unlimited access to a comprehensive video library and online courses that serve as professional development resources, focused on implementing the GrapeSEED curriculum for impact. Content covers topics such as basic How to Effectively Teach modules to the Master Teacher series.
The GrapeSEED curriculum integrates vocabulary and language expressions through Songs, Action Activities, Chants, Poems, and Stories to ensure efficient learning. It balances new information with systematic review of previously covered information, providing practice and repetition that leads to fluency. Additionally, the GrapeSEED Repeated Exposure and Practice (REP) provides practice opportunities, deepening students’ comprehension.
A typical GrapeSEED Unit includes:
Because learning and singing Songs is easy and fun for most students, they are an effective way to teach new vocabulary and language expressions. All Songs are designed to introduce and reinforce vocabulary and language functions within the learning objectives. When combined with pictures and natural gestures, students’ understanding of the new concepts will increase when they hear the same or similar phrases repeated in other contexts.
Chants contain most of the critical expressions necessary for communicating in English and provide a natural context for learning most language functions. Chants are designed to be learned in the same style as speaking in regular conversation, thus helping students avoid speaking in an awkward monotone.
Designed to introduce and reinforce vocabulary words and language functions, Action Activities teach specific actions with a physical response—the principle behind Total Physical Response (TPR). By requiring this response, Action Activities help students to begin thinking in English, and they can respond physically to English before their verbal abilities have developed.
Stories provide an opportunity for daily repetition and expanding students’ vocabulary and language functions with different types of sentence structures. Each Unit also includes a Story Dictionary, which reviews and reinforces almost all the vocabulary words and most of the language functions learned in the previous Unit. Reading Stories facilitates opportunities for discussion and comprehension questions that build students’ communicative ability and improves confidence.
Learning phonograms and understanding how they come together to make words lays the foundation for future reading skills. Phonogram Cards provide opportunities to focus on the sounds of the English language. Students are expected to air write and to learn the stroke order, name, and sound of each letter of the alphabet.
Vocabulary Picture Cards are important for teaching new vocabulary words and make it easy to learn the meaning of nouns, adjectives, and opposites. Picture Cards also allow for quick assessment of student progress on proper pronunciation and natural intonation.
Shared Reading teaches phonics principles, such as phoneme and phonogram awareness, as well as the concepts of print. Poems introduce a new letter, and teach the student to hear and recognize a specific sound at the beginning, middle, and end of words. Big Books foster students’ awareness of phonics principles, proper pronunciation, and natural expression, while also teaching high frequency words, basic vocabulary words, and concepts of print.
Readers are short stories that let students use their phonics skills, including assembly and decoding, to read independently and with comprehension. Teacher-led questions encourage discussion and use of language expressions found in each story.
Writers are used to teach students how to write simple, phonetically-decodable words by assembling two or more phonograms. By saying the words as they write them, students also learn to instantly recognize the words, helping them become more fluent readers as well as writers.
REP extends the student’s English exposure beyond the classroom with specifically designed online content that provides fun and exciting “edutainment” presented by professional native English speakers. Practice is important because it ensures the repetition and exposure to core language functions and patterns students need for increasing fluency.
The GrapeSEED Portal is a comprehensive collection of fully integrated digital resources designed to improve the overall teaching and learning experience. The GrapeSEED Portal is ever evolving and provides exciting benefits for schools, teachers, parents, and students.
The GrapeSEED Student App allows students to continue learning anywhere. The Student App guides the child’s learning experience with daily recommended content and carefully curated playlists. Children advance through engaging content while earning badges and unlocking GrapeSEED puzzles—gaining a sense of satisfaction, achievement, increased confidence, and advancement in the language.
Engaged parents contribute to learning success. The Parent Site allows parents to monitor their child’s learning and find a variety of helpful information about GrapeSEED. The Parent Site hosts downloadable activity pages to engage children and Unit Newsletters that inform parents. With this information and these resources, parents can see what their students have been learning and engage in the content with their child.
Good organization and administration produces results and communication is key. The School Site provides a place to manage GrapeSEED information including license counts, material orders, class unit plans, and student lists. Schools and teachers can also maintain all their information while supporting their students’ parents, managing ongoing teacher training, and getting administrator support from GrapeSEED. Professional Development and Our High Quality
Teacher training and instructional support are critical parts of ensuring the successful implementation of GrapeSEED. The Teacher Training Site is a professional development resource, composed of a video library and on-demand online courses to train and support teachers on effective instructional strategies using the GrapeSEED curriculum. The professional development series includes topics from theories that are foundational to GrapeSEED curriculum design and implementation, as well as detailed, component specific directions to help teachers improve their instruction. The Teacher Resources Site contains all GrapeSEED content and teaching materials including the REP material, as well as teacher content such as Lesson Plans, the Lesson Viewer, and the Unit Newsletters.
GrapeSEED is dedicated to providing schools and families with all of the tools necessary to make English instruction and acquisition as rewarding as possible.
For more information on what we have to offer, please check out our official website here.
LittleSEED is an English-exposure curriculum for children aged 36-48 months.
Using delightful and fun activities, LittleSEED teaches the most important sounds, vocabulary, and communicative expressions. It is specifically designed for the interests, learning styles, and academic abilities of these aspiring students. LittleSEED gives little learners more than a little advantage in English!
Whenever possible, LittleSEED is the ideal companion to GrapeSEED. It gives three-year-old students:
The LittleSEED curriculum allows schools and families everywhere to celebrate the joy of English learning while building a foundation for future success.
Children begin a joyful journey to learn English the moment they enter the LittleSEED classroom. Through songs, activities, and stories, they will be exposed to 48 of the most-used English sounds (phonograms), colors, numbers, expressions, and nearly 600 child-friendly words. English comes to life for children with music, movement, and story through play. Three-year-old children learn important sounds, vocabulary, and simple ways to communicate each day. Best of all, children experience joy while learning English.
When parents invest in their children’s English learning during the early childhood years, they are doing it at an optimal time because:
While there is a right time to learn English, there is also a right way.
LittleSEED follows the unique approach of GrapeSEED by imitating the way children learn in their native language: natural and joyful, not stressful or forced. In addition, LittleSEED’s approach to teaching helps children comprehend English much more quickly than traditional approaches by drawing them into learning through songs, play, and interaction. LittleSEED elevates English proficiency by offering:
LittleSEED training and support is designed to fully prepare and equip instructors with the right set of tools to teach the next generation of successful students. To ensure teachers are implementing LittleSEED with fidelity, teachers in training receive:
LittleSEED’s program components work together fluidly to accomplish academic objectives and lead aspiring students to future success. These core components include:
Behold the power of music, as these fun and engaging short songs with illustrations are used to teach vocabulary, language functions, and pronunciation.
Children love to move! These action-packed activities are written to teach vital instructions, classroom commands, and action verbs.
It’s story time! A cast of 32 original characters is vibrantly designed to teach 32 sounds of the English letters, each through its own Phoneme Ditty and Character Story.
The LittleSEED friends join the adventure as they share 16 poems that are intended to teach 16 multi-letter phonogram sounds of English using large English text.
Bring words to life with this set of almost 250 cards that are flashed to students periodically throughout class, giving them an opportunity to connect cartoon illustrations with vocabulary words.
Keep the learning and fun alive—outside of the classroom. Students can revisit songs, stories, and activities at home either through printed materials like the Songbook or a variety of content available online