![Children's House Montessori [Faulconbridge] co-director Lois Noye, preschoolers Keira Gardiner, Callan Kobus, Iris Hirst and early childhood teacher and preschool owner Rachel Doyle will embrace Indonesian language and culture after being selected for the ELLA trial next year.](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/silverstone-feed-data/2004e343-da07-4256-a0e0-06bed4eaeaae.jpg/r0_0_2047_1434_w576_h298_fmax.webp "Children's House Montessori [Faulconbridge] co-director Lois Noye, preschoolers Keira Gardiner, Callan Kobus, Iris Hirst and early childhood teacher and preschool owner Rachel Doyle will embrace Indonesian language and culture after being selected for the ELLA trial next year.")
The colours, flavours and phrases of Bali, Java and other parts of Indonesia will flow through the classroom at Children's House Montessori preschool in Faulconbridge from term one next year.
Last week the preschool was selected as one of only 12 in NSW and 40 in Australia from 1118 applicants to participate in the federal government's $9.8 million Early Learning Languages Australia [ELLA] trial.
ELLA will test the effectiveness of providing preschool children with early exposure to one of five languages through online-based lessons - Mandarin, Japanese, Indonesian, French and Arabic.
Indonesian was the language allocated to the Faulconbridge-based preschool.
Owner, early childhood teacher Rachel Doyle, said she applied to participate in the trial because she thought it was a great concept and it would be good to do something different.
"We have a culturally diverse school community, so we are really excited to be part of such an innovative trial," she said.
"Indonesian is the perfect choice for us, being our nearest neighbour and a popular holiday destination for many families.
"One of our pre-schoolers, Callan Kobus, has Indonesian heritage and we have families from many international backgrounds including Argentina, Bolivia, Japan, the Netherlands and Chile.
"Every month we have a table set up in the classroom with books, maps, flags and items of clothing related to a particular country and parents like to come in and read children's stories from that country or bring in traditional foods.
"In January we always start with Australia and this month we've chosen Chile."
Ms Doyle said staff will receive appropriate training and ongoing support for the ELLA program so they will be ready to begin lessons in term one.
"Research shows that from age nought to six is the best time for children to learn languages and new skills - their minds are like sponges.
"And because this new generation were born with iPads, it should be easy for them to learn language this way (using educational software programs).
"The Blue Mountains tends to be overlooked for these kinds of trials, so it's great that we've been selected to take part."
