About The Author
Pamela Seagal is a specialist in Early Childhood Education and a pioneer in Social and Emotional (SEL) education in South East Asia. She is the founder and curriculum developer of the Emotionally Socially Intelligent (E.S.I) KIDS programme. Pamela is the principal trainer and Director of Seagal Education Consultants Pte Ltd, Singapore.
Pamela’s passion and focus is in social and emotional education and with the E.S.I KIDS programme. She has enriched and transformed the lives of several thousands of students since 2007, and her programme has been used by well-known Singaporean, Australian, Indonesian and Malaysian early childhood institutions and schools.
Her career has developed over two decades. She has a wealth of experience in education management, curriculum design and development and in teacher training in South East Asia, Singapore and Australia. She has lectured and taught at reputable institutions such as the Singapore Management University (SMU).
The early childhood educators that have participated in this programme have deepened their basic knowledge and learned new and innovative skills, to meet the 21st century educational challenges.
She holds degrees in Education and Training, and Applied Linguistics, besides this, she holds postgraduate degrees in English Language teaching.
About the Illustrator
Cheryl Phang is a talented illustrator and designer. With a Diploma in Graphic and Multimedia Design (Equator College, Malaysia). Cheryl has enabled young learners to be engaged in visually meaningful and memorable illustrations and designs in the E.S.I KIDS Curriculum and the E.S.I KIDS Readers.
About E.S.I KIDS (History)
The E.S.I (Emotionally, Socially, Intelligent) KIDS programme has been used by well-known Singaporean, Australian, Indonesian and Malaysian early childhood institutions and schools since 2007 and transformed the lives of several thousands of students since then.
On the principle that language is how we express our EQ and SQ literacy, in 2006 Pamela drew on her experience to develop E.S.I KIDS, the first language curriculum in Singapore to incorporate EQ and SQ as fundamental principles, that goes beyond the fundamental skills of reading, writing, speaking, and listening.
Pamela realised that without critical thinking and processing skills, learners can have difficulty understanding how language is used in the context of reading comprehension passages, and a lack of confidence can become an obstacle to achieving fluency as speakers and writers of the language.
Pamela identified the root of the problem: that language cannot be “taught” through an exam oriented functional approach, but needs a communicative, three-dimensional approach in which learners understand, question, and apply all aspect of language use.
Learning from her experience it became clear to Pamela that the critical stage for kids to learn about this is from 4 to 7 years old. These are the formative years of children in which social and emotional skills are developed, and Pamela realised that teaching learners these vital skills early in life will help them become confident, fluent, communicators as well as reaping significant benefits in academic performance. Addressing this required the development of E.S.I KIDS, an innovative new programme integrating language, social and emotional skills for younger children. Since 2008 the core focus of Pamela’s vision and Seagal Education is in E.S.I KIDS.
About the Learning and “Think, Feel & Learn” Approach of the E.S.I KIDS programme
The overriding goal of the E.S.I (Emotionally, Socially, Intelligent) KIDS programme is to empower and inspire you, the parents or the teachers, to enrich the lives of your children or students using E.S.I KIDS programme as a developmental tool that explores emotional literacy.
The E.S.I KIDS programme is designed to develop a learner’s language, and problem solving skills, multiple intelligences, and his or her emotional and social quotient (EQ & SQ).
Learners are enabled by our “think, feel & learn” approach through the programme about daily social and emotional challenges as well as to “stop, think and do” the right thing in everyday situations. The programme prepares the learner linguistically, socially and emotionally to meet the challenges and issues of our increasingly globalised world.
An experiential learning approach is used at E.S.I KIDS meaning that it addresses the needs of each learner and actively involves them in the learning process through purposeful activities.
An experiential learning classroom provides a positive learning climate, makes the purposes of learning clear, and balances the intellectual and emotional components of learning to ensure that the learner develops a full set of 21st Century Competencies for future academic, professional, and social life.
The E.S.I KIDS programme is a solid foundation for future academic achievements. It is learning how to learn, how to solve problems. It is a child learning how to achieve goals, how to overcome challenges, and forming the habit of getting results.
The E.S.I KIDS programme is developing the social and language skills needed for successful business and social relationships. It is a well-grounded child, building leadership skills for the future. It is developing perseverance in the face of adversity, and the resilience to handle life’s inevitable set-backs. It is the path to individual integrity and responsible decisions making.
The E S.I KIDS programme is nurturing critical thinking. It is a child who is happy, positive, and motivated. It is founding self-confidence, and the language ability to express thoughts and opinions confidently. It is growing acceptance of the diversity found in a global world. It is learning to communicate effectively.
About the E.S.I KIDS Readers AND Curriculum
E.S.I (Emotionally, Socially, Intelligent) KIDS is focused on specific, social, interactive situations. The E.S.I framework provides a learning environment that helps ensure students to express themselves positively, have self-confidence and communicate effectively within a given situation. E.S.I KIDS place emphasis on providing a supportive environment through which each student’s emotional, social and academic intelligence is developed.
The E.S.I KIDS Curriculum is activity based and is designed to encourage learners to develop a useful range of emotional and social skills. The learning materials developed for the E.S.I KIDS Curriculum reflect the fact that English is the major language of international communication and is not limited to any one country, region, or culture. The level for students attending the curriculum is Kindergarten or Primary 1 and builds on the foundations of accurate and fluent communication already established, by extending grammatical, lexical and functional language skills.
The E.S.I KIDS Readers complements the Kindergarten Curriculum Framework as developed by the Ministry of Education (MOE) Singapore. E.S.I KIDS also fulfils the “unmet need” in nurturing a strong foundation of 21st Century Core Values in social and emotional competencies through the English Language. The E.S.I KIDS Readers guide and enable teachers to nurture both their own and their students’ problem solving and decision-making skills as well as, emotional and social intelligences. Animal characters in each story provide engagement while introducing the various topics and themes. Activities that extend and reinforce the learning journey are at the end of each reader.
By using social and emotional themes students develop a resource rich library of linguistic competencies together with social and emotional resilience. The readers can be used as a stand-alone book or integrated into the existing curriculum. Moreover, the E.S.I KIDS Readers can also be used as an additional resource together with the E.S.I KIDS curriculum.
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