Atayurt Private Schools provides a special education programme given with the support of Oxford University in the 2009 – 2010 education year. English is taught to our students in an enjoyable atmosphere by narrating and engaging the learners. The students are encouraged to speak with the help of the ORT (Oxford Reading Tree) programme, which is prepared for children whose native language is English, to learn reading and writing at schools in England. Our story-based reading programme, named Oxford Reading Tree, has 5,000,000 users all over the world. This programme is used in Eskişehir firstly and only by Atayurt Private Schools.
This programme is integrated into the lessons, not only with the structure of the language, but also by bringing the daily lives of our students to the class environment and by forming realistic stories. All messages that we want to give our students are hidden in the stories. Permanent learning is actualiazed by both enjoying and performing. Students are successful in having communicative competence by carrying their heroes in their imagination to their real lives and also to their classes.
In these lessons, our students study in a room which is designed especially for "Story telling" to apply the programme more efficiently. Our students have the privilege of learning English enjoyably in the world of Kipper, who is the hero of our stories. The stories are told using special methods which attract the attention of our students. Later, each student animates the speeches and movements seen in the stories. İn this way, learning in the class becomes permanent and also the students gain self-confidence in speaking at a young age.
The ORT programme provides audio-visual and tactile methods at the same time, which develop the reading, writing, listening and speaking abilities of the students. Learning English is reinforced actively in an interactive environment. The aim of such programmes, which are used all over the world, is to create a love of foreign languages, and allow children to create interesting, enjoyable and meaningful situations in an environment where the language is used naturally.