A Bit About Us...
Background & Philosophy
Aria was born out of a simple idea: combining language learning with creative movement and art to provide an educational experience that kids love. Our innovative approach to learning is the only one of its kind in Barcelona and the surrounding areas and aspires to creating captivating experiences in which our students truly love to learn.
Our Approach
In every lesson, we strive to create a positive and meaningful learning experience for each and every child. Our syllabus is based on scientifically-proven research that language acquisition is most effective when children are given the opportunity to truly embrace it through movement, play and exploration.
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Our yoga, dance and arts classes are taught by native English speakers, allowing for a fully immersive language learning experience in which students can also enjoy the multiple benefits that these activities provide, such as:
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Boosting self-esteem
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Stress & anxiety relief
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Social & emotional development
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Better emotion management
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Improved self-discipline
Storytelling
Story-telling plays a fundamental role in our classes. This fun, engaging and memorable medium is brought to life through the use of books and props and is used as a spring-board to enable students to discover new vocabulary and linguistic patterns and to help them develop their reading, listening and oral skills in English.
Alongside the multiple proven benefits that story-telling brings to language learning, research has also shown that it is highly effective in helping children to understand their feelings and emotions.
At Aria, we take this one step further by translating stories into dance routines, yoga sequences and pieces of art, thus giving our students the opportunity to acquire a greater understanding of the language, explore their emotions more deeply and express them through various forms of creativity.
We are storytelling creatures, and as children we acquire
language to tell those stories that we have inside us.
Jerome Bruner
Meet the Founder
I'm Sophie, the founder of Aria. Languages and arts are passions that took me around the world and eventually led me to Barcelona and to bringing this project to life.
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I've been a creative soul for as long as I can remember and am so grateful that from a very young age, I was given outlets to express that creativity through dance, music and art. I carried these passions into my adulthood and after graduating with a languages degree and becoming an ESL teacher, I embarked upon my travels and soon turned towards these art forms to inspire my teaching.
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I quickly discovered the profound effects of combining arts and language learning, and as I specialised in working with children at The British Council, I began to experiment more with this. In doing so, I noticed how absorbed my students became as they forgot about being in a classroom and got lost in their imaginations through the creative activities at hand. But, what really struck me was how they absorbed the language through which they were being taught - as their physical and creative skills blossomed, their language skills developed organically and spontaneously alongside them.
This is what led me to create Aria. I wanted to provide a space where children could foster their own love for language, for creativity and for self-expression. As the founder of Aria, I bring years of experience, knowledge and expertise in English language teaching and yoga instruction alongside my background in arts and look at how these can be combined to promote communicative and captivating learning spaces where students can thrive.
As their physical and creative skills blossomed, their language skills developed organically and spontaneously alongside them.
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