O Lume Minunata

LOCATION

admin — Tue, 05 May 2009 12:36:29 +0000

The classes will take place in Manhattan

West-Park Family Center
263 West 86th Street (between Broadway si West End Ave)
2nd floor, Nursery.

How to get there

By subway
local 1 – to 86th Street and Broadway.

By bus
M104 to 86th and Broadway
M7 and M11 to 86th and Amsterdam Ave.
M86 crosstown to Broadway.

Us

admin — Tue, 05 May 2009 12:30:27 +0000

Mihaela Craciun – director and founder – has a BA from University of Bucharest, Literature and Language Department and an MBA from South Bank University, London UK. She worked in sales and marketing in Romania, Great Britain and US, but often her thoughts went back to her first passion – to be a teacher. Now as a mother of two young children, Mihaela has the opportunity to teach them and the children at O Lume Minunata about the beauty of Romanian language and culture.

Nadia Mitu – teacher – has graduated from the Teaching College Gheorge Lazar, Cluj, Romania with a double award – kindergarten educator and elementary school teacher. She also has a BA from the University of Psychology, Cluj, Romania.
Nadia brings to O Lume Minunata 6 years of experience of working with preschoolers and elementary school children.

Bilingualism

admin — Tue, 05 May 2009 12:29:34 +0000

Right or Wrong? – Test your knowledge on Bilingualism

“Bilingualism is an exception”.

In fact: Monolingualism is the exception. Two third of world population speak more than one language.

“More than one language confuses the child and it mixes the language”.

On the contrary, research shows the bilingualism has a beneficial effect on the mental development of the child.
Bilingual children between 2-3 years often go through a stage when they mix languages. Their vocabulary in both languages is seldom equally developed. They not only have to learn which word is appropriate in each language, but also which word belongs to which language.

“Why start now? The child will pick it up later in no time”

Considering how much babies have to learn in their first years of life, another language really doesn’t add much to the load.
The early childhood (between 0 and 6 years) is the time when children acquire language effortlessly. No matter it’s about one, two or three languages. However the education systems everywhere seem to ignore this simple and long time tested truth by adding a foreign language to the curriculum only in 2nd or even 5th grade. By that time the window of effortless assimilation had already closed therefore the new language will remain what is – a foreign language.

“Read and write in several languages? Some kids can’t even handle that in one language.”

Reading and writing is a ‘coding / decoding’ process and is not linked to the number of languages a child speaks…. Interestingly enough, access to multiple languages actually makes it easier for children to understand the nature of language itself, which, in turn, improves overall literacy skills. Research supports what many parents have long felt: that multilingual children have better-developed linguistic understanding.

“A language is nothing more than language”.

As language is the means of communication it is heavily involved with culture. Language learning means understanding the culture the language belongs to as well.

Conclusion

Speaking Romanian to your child, you give him the gift of bilingualism. Bilingualism will make your child smarter, more flexible, and more open to newness and diversity, will make him a better human being. O Lume Minunata is happy to assist you in the process.

Once upon a time

admin — Tue, 05 May 2009 12:24:53 +0000

Once upon a time there was a Romanian poet, Ghe. Sion, and one of his poems said ‘dulcet and beautiful is the language we speak, another one more harmonious language we will never encounter elsewhere…” (orig. “Mult e dulce si frumoasa limba ce-o vorbim, alta limba armonioasa ca ea nu gasim..” / Ghe. Sion). Once upon a time there was a girl named Mihaela who only after years of living abroad and speaking a foreign language every day understood the truth of the poet’s words. It’s the mother tongue the poet honors in his verse. The mother tongue, the language we acquire in infancy and through which we learn to communicate, is the only language we feel with each fiber of our being when we express ourselves in speech. The words sound differently, their meaning is much deeper because the meaning is felt and not merely translated at cerebral level. Once again Mihaela had the chance to experience the power of mother tongue when, at a street fair in the middle of New York, her 3 year old son asked for “vata de zahar” the Romanian for “cotton candy”. The words sounded so clear, so dulcet, they touched a cord, and instantaneously she felt transported back to her own childhood. That very moment Mihaela started to dream of creating a space in the middle of Manhattan for other Romanian parents to be able to bring their own children to play the Romanian way. That’s how O Lume Minunata came to being, a Romanian space where children of Romanian heritage have the opportunity to interact and integrate their Romanian identity into their American existence.

Mission

admin — Tue, 05 May 2009 12:23:08 +0000

O LUME MINUNATA aims to help the children of Romanian heritage from USA to attain excellence in their command of Romanian language, this way making it possible for them to know and understand their own roots, the culture of their parents’ and grandparents’ country.