Montessori Language Academy

I am currently working on my type 10 language teaching license and completed my field experience hours at this location for my first and second language acquisition class. I have completed 125 field hours in 6 different schools and this school was by far the best learning environment. This school is truly amazing! Children with zero background in Japanese before coming to the school were actually speaking and reading/​writing in Japanese at 4 years old. They were also reading/​writing in English! I saw 4 YO MLA children working at a more advanced English reading/​writing level than the 5 YO monolingual children I visited in other schools, AND they were able to read/​write in Japanese! Ah-​mazing! For all those parents afraid of raising bilingual children for fear of hindering their English progress, read the research on bilingual children and check out this school! Children do not suffer in school when raised as bilinguals-​these children are great proof of that. These children were speaking more fluently in Japanese after one year at MLA than college students studying Japanese for one year. The teachers were all very professional and caring. It was great to see them in action with the children. I believe I learned a great deal from them and I was able to walk away with a lot of great ideas for what I want to do in my future classroom. I was thoroughly impressed! I would absolutely send my children here!

My son went here from age 3 through K. The school is spectacular and not just b/​c of the language immersion. The staff are thoughtful and know how to inspire the children to love learning. I would highly recommend it if you are thinking about Montessori for your children.

My daughter loves coming to this pre-​school and she is learning Japanese so well even though my husband and I do not speak Japanese. What I did not expect, but has happliy turned out to be the case, is that her interest in other languages has increased dramatically since learning Japanese. (I am fluent in German and previously spoke German to her to no avail. Now she asks me to teach her more German words.)
The school has such a special air about it. I am very impressed with the curriculum and how the school is run. The staff is award winning, just fantastic. My daughter does Japanese immersion the morning and then English in afternoon. The school has special teachers for each language. Art and music classes are included in the price of the tuition as well.
While language immersion montessori programs are never inexpensive, MLA’s cost is extremely competitive. The tuition is for a school year that runs from September until almost the end of June (a full month longer than other programs so that needs to factored in when comparing tution rates.)
I would highly recommend this school to anyone who is looking for a language immersion montessori pre-​school. I don’t think you will find a better program for the money in the Chicagoland area.