BilinguaSing is the name that perfectly describes the UK’s only carefully-crafted music-led programme for teaching languages to babies and children from birth to 11 years. Founder Ellie Baker launched the business in 2013, and together with her sister, has developed a thriving franchise operation catering for double, triple and potentially quadruple language franchisees around the UK and beyond.
Ellie is a language teacher and music lover. She studied languages at university and later, following the birth of her first child she found herself drawn to a Birthlight Baby Yoga class. The very notion, as an activity drawing mums and babies together in a positive and shared experience made a profound impression. Even as she participated in her early classes, Ellie was wondering how her own different skillset might be applied to a similar concept. BilinguaSing was the result and its formula was instantly appealing to Ellie’s sister Mel who herself had also had a child within a few months of Ellie giving birth. Mel gave up her job to join Ellie at BilinguaSing and their very different professional backgrounds and characters combined perfectly to move the business forward.
The thinking of introducing different languages to children soon after birth is a good one. Research has shown that babies introduced to a second language before the age of 6 months are able to shape their brain at its most flexible stage. As the child gets older the brain’s ability to restructure itself diminishes and within a few more years (6 – 9) the opportunity has all but vanished. This explains why very young children the world over can learn secondary other languages effortlessly, while older children and adults struggle to become fluent or develop good accents.
Wellbeing Insurance were already accustomed to insuring Baby Yoga.
The BilinguaSing model is multi-sensory. It uses movement, storytelling, and singing. Sensory stimulation enriches a child’s brain development and learning; while the music and songs help encourage their sense of musicality and rhythm. People can be drawn to classes because of the appeal of introducing another language early or they might simply want a slightly different mum and baby experience. Those wanting to run their own BilinguaSing franchise are mostly likely bilingual to begin with but for the little ones that benefit from a taste of these early classes the value they derive could be life-changing. BilinguaSing classes are more than simply learning French, German, Italian or Spanish. Learning a second language has a whole range of potential benefits including health, personal and even economic. Moreover, the grounding it can provide to a child as a citizen of a wider world can open up a wealth of cultural and social opportunities in later life.
Wellbeing Insurance were already accustomed to insuring Baby Yoga as an activity when Ellie approached us for insurance for her new business. It proved straightforward to arrange cover for Ellie and Mel and later for the other BilinguaSing franchisees as they started up around the country. As the number of franchises continues to grow, Wellbeing Insurance are delighted to continue to provide the insurance support for BilinguaSing and their businesses, which all necessarily require the Malpractice and Public Liability insurance for their classes.