Gabi’s mother, Justyna is very proud of her 12-year-old daughter who overcame congenital challenges to excel in languages and much more!
Justyna Frankiewicz-Popiolek is a career Helen Doron English professional from Poland. She has been a teacher since 2002, a very popular teacher trainer since 2003 and recently graduated with a degree in Neurodidactics. She also has three very successful Helen Doron centres including an English learning centre, a kindergarten and a MathRiders centre.
Gabi recently excelled on her Cambridge English First (FCE) exam with A, at C1 level.
In her own words, Justyna, the super-proud Mummy of Gabi, enthuses about her very special daughter. “Gabi will receive an individualized English programme at her school as she scored much higher than her peers taking the placement test and there is no group for her age anywhere near her level, and they cannot mix her with the older students.
Gabi started learning with Helen Doron Baby’s Best Start at the age of only 5 months. But even earlier, at the age of 3 months, she was already my guinea pig in the seminar for babies, that was then introduced for the first time. I remember the shock of my Budapest teacher training course participants who could not believe I can flip my 3-month-old daughter upside down!
It was the best moment for her to start as we also immediately started teaching her baby signs. She knew 60 of them and kept many when her sister was born – the girls “talked’ to each other with the signs, which was absolutely amazing.
As Gabi was born with muscle tension disorder (hypotonia) we had to spend a lot of time on physical therapy and on stimulation of many kinds – therefore teaching her a foreign language was a natural consequence – also the baby sign language opened all new horizons to her as she could communicate with us very early. Through the Helen Doron methodology, we managed to install in her the love for learning new things, open-mindedness, courage to take up challenges and confidence in herself – which now only makes us proud of her every step of the way.
Gabi is a brilliant student, learns languages without effort – now also Spanish, French and recently Korean through the app, as she is a K-Pop fan. I believe that a very early start in the foreign language acquisition became a springboard for her in general linguistic development – she has no difficulties in learning in general. She is bilingual – reads books in English and watches films without subtitles – but what is most important – she switches from language to language without a second of hesitation and is absolutely fluent in English. This is the best we could give her as now her plans are to study in International IB Program and go to student exchanges abroad. In the future she would love to be ….a teacher and work in my Helen Doron Centre. This is really touching for me as she could do absolutely anything with her potential.
I believe that having been brought up as a part of the Helen Doron family gave her everything she needs to become a happy and successful adult – she is a social animal, very loyal and supportive friend and balanced and passionate young lady overall.
She is also looking forward to beginning her Helen Doron Radio adventure with Richard Freedman, broadcasting on Teen Buzz Radio in the Fall.
Her younger sister, Emilia, following Gabi’s example, started with Helen Doron as a baby. She has wonderful ideas of how to implement environmentally friendly philosophy in my Learning Centre – she planned “Clean the World Around You Campaign” for Helen Doron students in Pulawy and Helen Doron Book of Records competition.
As parents – we are very proud of how our daughters pass on the ideals of the Helen Doron philosophy – with trust, enthusiasm and passion – exactly the way they have always been taught by Helen Doron teachers.”
