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Saturday language club · South East London

For little why-askers
growing up bilingual

We read and play in Russian — no desks, no drills, no pressure. Learning through curiosity rather than obligation. Taking Russian from the language of home to the language of friends, brilliant books, and joyful discovery through games, experiments, quests, and real adventures!

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Мамонт и Мята — клуб русского языка, Лондон
Our programmes

Two ways to dive into Russian

Book Club: Speech · Logic · Maths · Neuro-games

Everything a small person needs when facing the not-so-easy task of mastering two or more language systems — often with limited resources: rare trips to the country of the language being learned, difficulty finding good books for a home library, and not enough time for mums who are already stretched thin. This course will also gradually prepare children for reading and writing.

  • Speech development, vocabulary expansion, retelling skills
  • Seamless grammar work — endings, prepositions, prefixed and unprefixed verbs
  • Craft (fine motor skills, preparing the hand for writing), helps consolidate what was read
  • Maths games (active games and tasks from leading modern educators), developing memory, logic, attention, and spatial thinking
  • Phonemic awareness
  • Neuro-games
  • Emotional intelligence
  • Board games

Each session

Board Game Club (Game Library)

Board games help develop a whole range of skills and teach children to build their first strategies. Each session we simply play a few games chosen by the children (usually 3–5 different ones per session). Our game library has around a hundred board games for children, most of them in Russian.

  • Learning to wait your turn
  • Learning to lose and move on
  • Teamwork
  • Visual memory
  • Strategic thinking
  • Speech development
  • Vocabulary expansion
  • Grammar
  • Maths basics
Where we meet

Upper Norwood Library Hub

39 Westow Hill, Norwood, London SE19 1TQ

Separate street entrance — you'll spot us right away.

Near Crystal Palace station (London Overground)

Convenient for families in Crystal Palace, Upper Norwood, West Norwood, Bromley, Beckenham, Dulwich, Forest Hill, Sydenham, and Croydon.

Диана Юнусова — основатель Мамонт и Мята
About me

Hi, I'm Diana Yunusova

I am a philologist, educator, and mother of two children who are learning to speak three languages: Russian, English, and Spanish.

I graduated with honours in Russian philology from Novosibirsk State Technical University, then completed a Master's in Teaching Russian as a Foreign Language at Herzen State Pedagogical University in St Petersburg. Alongside my teaching career I worked in broadcast journalism, before leaving Russia in 2014 and spending several years in Latin America — teaching, travelling, and learning to hear language from the outside. I later earned an Erasmus Mundus Master's degree in Journalism and Media in Denmark and the UK. In London I teach Russian to bilingual children and as a foreign language. I also work for an international NGO.

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