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Attention Preschools: Find Out How You Can Use iPad Apps for Kids to Teach Spanish, French, and Chinese

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There has been much talk over the past year about Apple’s revolutionary iPad and how it will change the way kids learn. Many schools have started introducing iPads into the classroom, most recently the New York Times reported on January 4, 2011 that Rosalyn High School, located on Long Island, provided 47 iPads to students and teachers, and at some point they would like to have iPads for all 1,100 students.

It’s a significant investment at an estimated $750 cost for each iPad, but the investment is expected to save money in the long run by cutting printing and textbook costs. The fact that the iPads are cool and the kids love to use them is just a bonus. The NYT article states that there are currently about 5,400 educational applications on the ipad.

Many other high schools and colleges across the country have started using the iPad in the classroom as well, but how about the little ones? Is the iPad an effective platform for young language learners? Well, it depends … it depends on the apps that are used.

The iPad absolutely can be a phenomenal platform for kids learning Spanish, French or Chinese in preschool if you have the right apps. The key is that the iPad apps for toddlers and preschoolers must meet the unique developmental needs and interests of this age group. The iPad itself will get their initial interest but it is the apps that will get them hooked. A textbook type approach won’t work – you will not be able to get a little kid to start conjugating verbs (you will lose them from the start, and this isn’t even an effective approach). On the other hand, a flashcard based approach with colors, days of the week, numbers, etc. is just not effective or particularly interesting.

Preschool language experts will tell you that one of the best ways to introduce kids to language is through storytelling. If done right, the kids are captivated while learning whole language in context. The kids hear words, phrases, and whole sentences in the dialogue (ideally with lively narration and vivid illustrations). For further reinforcement, the language can be supported with related games, crafts, songs, pretend play and other activities revolving around the story’s theme (e.g. The Three Little Pigs). Best of all, if the iPads and the story apps can travel home this will create an educational partnership with the parents – and this is when the language proficiency takes off.

As a firm believer in the iPad revolution and an advocate for early language learners, my company is proud to offer a 50% discount to educational institutions when purchasing multiple versions of my iPad apps. Current offerings include The Red Hen, Cinderella, The Three Little Pigs, Thumbelina, Jack and The Beanstalk, and The Ugly Duckling. All titles are bilingual Spanish/English, French/English and Mandarin/English.

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Ana Lomba is changing the way people think about and interact with young children learning languages. Her Parents’ Choice award-winning books, lively songs, games, stories, and mobile applications are quickly becoming favorites with teachers and parents who want to nurture young children’ inborn language abilities. Key to the success of Ana’s break-through method is a focus on the family as the ideal environment for early language learning – even her signature curriculum for language programs is built with parents in mind. Ana has taught toddler, preschool, elementary school, and college-level Spanish courses, and held leadership positions with some of the most influential language organizations in the US, including ACTFL, NNELL and FLENJ. After graduating with a law degree from Spain, her native country, Ana pursued graduate studies at Binghamton University, Princeton University, and NYU.

Discover the Amazing Powers of Children’s Bilingual Books – And Why the Audience Matters More than You Think

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Little Red Riding Hood by Ana Lomba
A great way to learn Spanish food names through fairy tales

Knowing what we now know about children learning two or more languages, I find it quite puzzling that schools and homes don’t stack their libraries’ shelves with bilingual books.

Why are bilingual books important? Because…

Bilingual books and materials serve as a scaffold for our children’s skills in the second or weaker language by mobilizing the assets of their first or stronger language.

And the beauty of it all is that they work in reverse as well:

The more our children learn in their weaker language, the stronger their dominant language gets.

Why? Because our brain is constantly making connections, and because language skills transfer.

Bilingual books facilitate this connective process by visually contrasting the two languages – Boom! You open the book and there they are, right in front of you. The child doesn’t have to spend hours trying to decipher the language in order to understand the content. Instead, with a little bit of preparation in the stronger language, she can focus her attention on building up the weaker or newer language. And if the books or materials include audio, that is another wonderful scaffolding tool for the brain.

Our children’s time is best spent on developing strategies to advance further in the new language, not on figuring out what’s going on every step of the way – the latter can be tremendously frustrating!

Keep in mind, however, that:

  • Not all bilingual books are created equal (there are different types of bilingual books).
  • Not all usage of even great bilingual books is equally effective.
  • Not all bilingual books are equally useful to different audiences.

This article focuses on the third point, the audience, and specifically on three important factors to consider about the audience: the cultural background of the child, the age of the child, and the adult teachers of the child.

So, why does the audience matter?

1. The cultural background of the child

A western child new to Chinese has different needs than a child of Chinese-American heritage. A book that is too culture-centered may overwhelm the western child. Moreover, chances are that she will rarely use the language included in the book because it has little application to her everyday life. However, the same book may be perfect for the Chinese-American child if she is an active participant of that culture.

Play and Learn Spanish "Buenos días" scene by Ana Lomba
Parents can learn to speak with their children in Spanish with Play and Learn Spanish

In my opinion, many world language programs rush too quickly into remote cultural topics of little relevance to young children; consequently these students don’t learn language for the here and now.

A better approach would be to introduce cultural topics in stages: focus on building a solid language foundation around the child’s everyday life first so that the student can operate at a more advanced level as she encounters more of the culture. Otherwise, language study ends up feeling like a social studies class.

Please note that this does not mean that culture should not be introduced from the beginning. What I am saying is that it makes sense to focus on elements of the culture that ‘flow’ with the children’s developmental stage and everyday environment as opposed to taking them too far too quickly.

2. The age of the child

The younger the child the more child-centric the books should be. Don’t expect a four year old to understand things that are outside her life experience. As an author specializing in writing for young children, I try to create bilingual books that engage toddlers and preschoolers, but that are aimed at parents as well. The idea is to help the parents learn a new language or improve their language skills so that they can use them with their children in an interactive manner.

3. The adult teachers of the child

In my years of writing bilingual books and curriculum, I have come to realize that it is critical to consider not only the children as audience, but their parents or caregivers as well.

When I started writing bilingual books, I noticed a few things:

  • The large majority of adults teaching languages to young children (that is, ages 0 to 8) are educated and have varying degrees of command of the target language, but often lack formal training in language education.
  • Many parents trying to raise their children bilingually at home do not do so systematically or with a plan in mind, even if they are themselves bilingual.
  • To complicate matters, there are quite a few deeply entrenched misconceptions about language learning in the general public.

I concluded that as an author, I had to focus more on the needs of these adults, and to model effective interactions to help them advance their own language skills. If you use the book Play and Learn Spanish, for example (a bilingual book geared to parents), you will see that it depicts parents and children interacting in typical everyday situations. Parents using this book can incorporate these interactions in their daily routines little by little.

My stories also enhance literacy acquisition while developing oral skills (they are very dialogue rich), and include games that help with building vocabulary.

As I go along, I am discovering other audiences for my books that I didn’t anticipate. For example, many grandparents use the books to learn or to pass on their native language to their grandchildren. This is not surprising. In my culture (I’m from Spain), grandparents play a very important role in their grand children’s upbringing, so it is only natural that they are interested in learning new things with their grandchildren. Similarly, there are many stay-at-home moms (and dads) who want to boost their children’s education while developing new professional skills for themselves.

In sum, bilingual books are fantastic tools to conserve our children’s energy and redirect it to where it will have the most impact (growth). It is important to be strategic in relation to the audience. As an author with a specific audience in mind, I integrate that consideration into the planning and design of my products.

Teachers, administrators, parents, and grandparents can also have greater success if they understand not only the needs of the children in their care but also their own needs as active participants in their children’s education.

With best wishes,
Ana Lomba

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Ana Lomba is changing the way people think about and interact with young children learning languages. Her Parents’ Choice award-winning books, lively songs, games, stories, and mobile applications are quickly becoming favorites with teachers and parents who want to nurture young children’ inborn language abilities. Key to the success of Ana’s break-through method is a focus on the family as the ideal environment for early language learning – even her signature curriculum for language programs is built with parents in mind. Ana has taught toddler, preschool, elementary school, and college-level Spanish courses, and held leadership positions with some of the most influential language organizations in the US, including ACTFL, NNELL and FLENJ. After graduating with a law degree from Spain, her native country, Ana pursued graduate studies at Binghamton University, Princeton University, and NYU.

 

What Was the Buzz at the 2010 World Languages Expo?

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With close to 7,000 attendees from all over the US, this year’s World Languages Expo (the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages –ACTFL– annual conference) was a huge success.

The Expo is THE place to be if you want to take the pulse of our profession. There are many things I could talk about, but for briefness sake I will share just 3 things:

 1. The “Communities” standards rock!

I loved ACTFL President Eileen Glisan’s statement that the “Communities” goal areas were “perhaps the most visionary of the Standards for Foreign Language Learning in the 21st Century.” [If you don’t know what the national standards or the 5 C’s are, click here to go to ACTFL’s website and click on the “Standards for Foreign Language Learning: Executive Summary” link]

Finally! If you have followed my work at all, you know that I strongly believe that the Communities standards should be moved up the ladder from the bottom to the top. Also, if I had my way, next to the Communities standards there would be a new “C” for “Child.” In my opinion, in the case of young children we should start with the here-and-now of our children and their communities instead of pushing them too quickly into remote cultural topics. A young child will only use the target language if it has immediate applications in his everyday life.

If you don’t see the significance of the Communities standards, let me explain that creating opportunities to use the target language beyond the classroom has a direct impact on motivation, practice, and ultimate level of proficiency acquired.

At ACTFL, there were several special focus sessions dedicated to teaching with Communities in mind, sending a strong message that languages are best learned when used with communities beyond the classroom.

What do I believe is the best language learning ‘community’ for young children? Families! It makes a great difference to get parents engaged early.

2. Ever heard about “high leverage teaching practices”? No? Then keep reading because this is a fantastic project

I confess one thing: I had never heard the term “high leverage teaching practices.” Neither had the majority of the attendees at the Assembly of Delegates, composed by representatives of the 50 states as well as other entities (I went with my state organization, Foreign Language Educators of New Jersey).

Apparently, the term comes from the teaching of mathematics, and it refers to the competencies that all aspiring teacher candidates should acquire in order to become effective teachers of world languages (think of “If I can’t do this, then I won’t accomplish anything” type of practices). Eileen Glisan further explained that these are practices that:

  • Are powerful in advancing student learning
  • Can be unpacked and taught
  • Are unlikely to be learned well only through experience
  • Can be assessed
  • Can be justified to teacher candidates as being meaningful and useful for becoming skilled practitioners

The question for us was then, “if you were going to choose one competency, what would this be?” At our table we came up with ‘staying in the target language,’ and this turned out to be the most popular response that day.

Why was ‘staying in the target language’ the first thing that came to most minds? Because new teachers tend to succumb to the temptation to speak in English most of the time. I don’t blame them – it takes a lot of work to plan a class so carefully as to be able to conduct it successfully in the target language!

ACTFL announced that during the next year it will conduct research aimed at identifying some of those high-leverage teaching practices in our field, which I think is a great idea!

On a related note, attendees to the Assembly of Delegates received a copy of the new report The Teachers We Need: Transforming World Language Education in the United States. Click here to go to the National Foreign Language Center and download a copy of The Teachers We Need: Transforming World Language Education in the United States.

 3. Collecting data is key

At the Assembly of Delegates, Marty Abbott (ACTFL’s Director of Education) presented the latest data on foreign language enrollment in K-12 public schools. [Click here to go to the ACTFL website and purchase the report Foreign Language Enrollments in K-12 Public Schools: Are Students Prepared for a Global Society?]

So, what are the numbers? (Again, this information is for public schools and K-12 only)

  • During the years 2004-05 18% of American K-12 students were enrolled in world languages.
  • During the years 2007-08 the number had risen to 18.5 %, however the number of elementary programs had decreased and the number of secondary programs increased.

Agh! What do you think about those numbers? And what about the fact that many elementary programs are being eliminated as we speak due to the economic crisis? Are we preparing our children for a global society when even today most programs start in high school? (And if you don’t know this, as far as language education is concerned high school is way too late for most students!)

At least there were some good news: the Department of Education is trying to implement a consistent process to collect data from the 50 states. The more people know about the state of crisis of our children’s global future the more chances we’ll have of finding good, innovative solutions.

So these were a few interesting things I learned at the Expo. I’d love to know what you learned. Please share in the comments area!

Best,

Ana Lomba

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Upcoming workshops by Ana Lomba:
  • December 13 & 14, 2010. 27th Annual National Parent Conference, NHSA (National Head Start Association). Virginia Beach, VA. Presenters: Ana Lomba, Ana Lomba Early Languages LLC, and Karen Nemeth, Language Castle LLC. Title: “Parents Partnering with Teachers to Support Success in Home Language and English Development.” To register, click here. [Nota: esta presentación también será ofrecida en español]
  • February 16-18, 2011. 40th Anniversary and Annual Conference, NABE (National Association for Bilingual Education). New Orleans, LA. Presenters: Ana Lomba, Ana Lomba Early Languages LLC, and Karen Nemeth, Language Castle LLC. Title: “Re-Imagining Bilingual Education for Preschool: New Technology Strategies for Teachers, Children, and Parents.” To register, click here.
  • March 9th, 2011. Free online webinar sponsored by The Investigator Club. 2pm Eastern Time (New York Time). Presenter: Ana Lomba, Ana Lomba Early Languages LLC. Title: “How Toddlers and Preschoolers Learn Languages: Tips and Activities for Today’s Multilingual Classrooms and Homes.” To register, click here.
  • March 19th, 2011. Spring Conference, FLENJ (Foreign Language Educators of New Jersey). Somerset, NJ. Presenters: Ana Lomba, Ana Lomba Early Languages LLC, and Karen Nemeth, Language Castle LLC. Title: “Teaching Languages to Toddlers & Preschoolers.” To register, clickhere.  [Registration information pending as of 12/1/10]
  • May 6th and 7th, 2011. Annual Conference, DVAEYC (Delaware Valley Association for the Education of Young Children). Philadelphia, PA.Presenters: Ana Lomba, Ana Lomba Early Languages LLC, and Karen Nemeth, Language Castle LLC. Title: “New Approaches to Linguistic Diversity: Using Technology to Meet the Needs of Each Individual Child.” To register, click here.   [Registration information pending as of 12/1/10]

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Ana Lomba is changing the way people think about and interact with young children learning languages. Her Parents’ Choice award-winning books, lively songs, games, stories, and mobile applications are quickly becoming favorites with teachers and parents who want to nurture young children’ inborn language abilities. Key to the success of Ana’s break-through method is a focus on the family as the ideal environment for early language learning – even her signature curriculum for language programs is built with parents in mind. Ana has taught toddler, preschool, elementary school, and college-level Spanish courses, and held leadership positions with some of the most influential language organizations in the US, including ACTFL, NNELL and FLENJ. After graduating with a law degree from Spain, her native country, Ana pursued graduate studies at Binghamton University, Princeton University, and NYU.

Four Things Parents Need to Know to Find the Best iPad Apps for Kids Learning Languages

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Is Your iPad a $600 Toy or a Revolutionary Learning Tool? It All Depends on the Apps You Choose!

So you have made a huge investment in the iPad – and if you are like me you absolutely love it! It’s thin and light, making it the ideal companion of travelers. You can surf the internet, watch movies or your favorite shows, check Facebook and Twitter, download apps, store and read entire libraries of e-books (and adjust font sizes for those tired eyes or even look up the meaning of words along the way)… Who wouldn’t love it?

You love it and so do your kids. So…here they come! They can’t wait to get their hands on it. Do you let them or not? Probably, right? But HOW do you want them to use it? Will it be just the coolest new game station in the house? Or will it be used as the greatest innovative learning platform that you have ever seen? Well, it depends on you and the apps you choose for your kids (not that there is anything wrong with kids choosing some gaming apps as well, but you get the idea).

I am not a specialist in all areas of education, but I know a few things about children learning languages. So, if you are interested in your kids learning to speak Spanish, French, Chinese, English or any other favorite language, then there are a few things that I can share with you to help you find the best iPad apps for your kids – and, by the way, I think that the iPad is going to revolutionize the way parents and kids learn languages together.

Four Tips to Help You Find the Best iPad Apps for Kids Learning Languages

1. Don’t underestimate your kids’ potential

Children are language learning geniuses and they can definitely handle much more than flashcards. If you expose them to just numbers, colors, and days of the week, that’s all they’ll learn. However, if you expose them to whole language in context with the proper support and human interaction they will figure out everything about that language—that’s how babies learn their first language.

Therefore, use flashcards if you want, but beware of language apps that rely exclusively on the flashcard approach—after all, you can memorize every word in a dictionary and still not know how to speak the language.

2. Engage your child’s interest

Kids learn best when they are having fun along the way, and that is normally throughplayful experiences. You know that your kids love something when they ask you to do something over and over (how many times can they watch their favorite movie, or play their favorite game, ask you to read their favorite story, etc?).

So it is very important that the applications that you choose are engaging. That being said, beware of apps that are over the top with pop up animation and innumerable options that unnecessarily distract their attention.

3. Build language around your parent-child interaction

Your kids love activities they do with you and this also happens to be the best way to learn languages at home. So seek apps that will facilitate spending time together with your child on the iPad and will transfer easily for use in your everyday routines (i.e. shopping for groceries, cooking, going to school, games, etc.).

4. Choose the language learning strategy that works best for you and your kids. Like many things in life you need a plan or strategy to get you where you want to be, and this is true for languages as well. So when reviewing apps, understand the approach and assess for yourself if this will really put you and your child on the right track.

Great, now you know some important tips to keep in mind. While I am not aware of all the apps available, the tips above were integral elements in the development of my apps for children learning Spanish, French, Chinese and English (more languages will be available in the future).

So far I have published apps based on classic stories that I have adapted for maximum language acquisition – storytelling is a phenomenal way to introduce whole language in context around age appropriate topics that kids love.

If you want to try my stories, please click here to the iTunes library. Once in the itunes library, you will be brought to my bilingual version of The Red Hen in Spanish and English. To see other titles (e.g. Cinderella) and other bilingual offerings (e.g. French and English, Chinese and English, Chinese and Spanish) then simply scroll down the page in iTunes. The Red Hen is available for free for everyone to try.

Again, to go to the iTunes library click here.

I hope you and your kids enjoy reading the stories.

Ana Lomba

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Ana Lomba is changing the way people think about and interact with young children learning languages. Her Parents’ Choice award-winning books, lively songs, games, stories, and mobile applications are quickly becoming favorites with teachers and parents who want to nurture young children’ inborn language abilities. Key to the success of Ana’s break-through method is a focus on the family as the ideal environment for early language learning – even her signature curriculum for language programs is built with parents in mind. Ana has taught toddler, preschool, elementary school, and college-level Spanish courses, and held leadership positions with some of the most influential language organizations in the US, including ACTFL, NNELL and FLENJ. After graduating with a law degree from Spain, her native country, Ana pursued graduate studies at Binghamton University, Princeton University, and NYU.

Parents—Beware of the Fast Food Approach to Foreign Languages

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Flashcards: The Fast Way to Learn Languages - Is That True?
Flashcards: Tons of calories - little nutrition value

By now, most people are aware of the terrible effects of fast food on our metabolism and our health. We certainly would not want to subject ourselves (much less our children) to a diet exclusively based on fast food!

Unfortunately, what many parents don’t realize is that pre-packaged, fast food type of approaches are creeping into education.In the case of world languages, the most rapid expansion of fast food can be observed in what I call the “flashcard approach”—and, boy, is it popular!

So what is a flashcard?

A flashcard is a tool (think of a nail, for example) designed to support a much larger structure (think of a house). While nails are useful, you certainly would want to have more tools than nails in your toolbox in order to build a house!

The typical flashcard has a photo or an illustration and the name of the object, person, location, time, action, etc., in the target language (for example, a picture of a table and the words “una mesa” in Spanish).

Flashcards can be put together in strings to create sentences. For example, you could create a string to say that “La manzana está sobre la mesa” (“The apple is on the table”).

Like all tools, the impact of flashcards is localized and limited. The truth is thatyou could spend years memorizing a whole dictionary and thousands upon thousands of sentence strings and still not speak a language. Why is that? Because the house (a language) requires much more than nails, no matter how long and sturdy they are.

In my twenty years of experience in language education I have never met anyone that has learned a language exclusively through flashcards. Ah, what a waste of time, money, effort, and capacity!

But let’s go back to the fast food analogy. As crazy as it may seem, many language-learning companies have done the quick calculation that flashcards are cheap to produce and easy to sell because they produce an immediate feeling of satiation. Just as with fast food, you feel stuffed, but for the wrong reasons.

Another parallel effect is that flashcards, like fast food, produce addiction. The moment a person used to the flashcard approach confronts something even slightly more challenging, the physical response is that of rejection—“This is too difficult” “I can’t do it” “It takes too much effort” “Why should I even try if I have this fantastic (flashcard-based) program available?” Ironically, they seem unaware of the fact that the flashcard approach is not leading them to effective communication because it’s missing many important components. One of the most critical? Social interaction.

Now, imagine your town full of fast food chains and only two or three restaurants where the chef actually cares about providing carefully prepared and nutritious food. And now imagine that those fast food chains have managed to get a leg in your children’s schools and they are ready to substitute all the healthy food for candy. You would be up in arms, right?

Well, that is precisely what is taking place in Spanish, French, Italian, Arabic, and Chinese language classes around the country. Teachers are out; flashcard-based software programs are in.

Why am I so upset if I am also a businesswoman that publishes language-learning materials? First because I am a mom and second because I believe that all children should receive a well-rounded quality education that includes languages. We don’t use the computer and flashcards exclusively to teach children math and English, so why do we think this approach is appropriate to teach them languages?

Let me be clear: Nothing can replace the profound impact of well-trained teachers or engaged parents in language education. The best language-learning materials are designed to support parents and teachers efforts, not to replace them.

In the same way, we teachers—and especially parents—need to open our eyes and understand what sort of “deal” we are getting when we purchase a language-learning packet.

Ask yourself, “It looks like a great value, but is this truly good for my kids?”

If what you want is to expose your children to a few words, then go ahead and use only flashcards. On the other hand, if you truly want your children to learn a new language, then realize that you won’t get there with flashcards only.

The good news is that the human brain (and especially that of children) is designed to learn language. You don’t need to spoon-feed your kids their first language, and the same is true of any additional language. There are much better ways to stimulate those wonderful language-learning engines so that they reach their full potential.

Best,
Ana Lomba

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Ana Lomba is changing the way people think about and interact with young children learning languages. Her Parents’ Choice award-winning books, lively songs, games, stories, and mobile applications are quickly becoming favorites with teachers and parents who want to nurture young children’ inborn language abilities. Key to the success of Ana’s break-through method is a focus on the family as the ideal environment for early language learning – even her signature curriculum for language programs is built with parents in mind. Ana has taught toddler, preschool, elementary school, and college-level Spanish courses, and held leadership positions with some of the most influential language organizations in the US, including ACTFL, NNELL and FLENJ. After graduating with a law degree from Spain, her native country, Ana pursued graduate studies at Binghamton University, Princeton University, and NYU.