Is Preschool Too Early For a Second Language? Not With Little Pim!

With all the cuts that school systems are going through, the chances that your children will have the option to learn a second language before middle school or even high school are dwindling each day.

Teaching your child a foreign language yourself, if you don’t speak it is a daunting task.  I mean, where do you start?  What do you do? 

The toddler years provide an essential base for language, and the best time to introduce a foreign language is in those formative years.  Since all language is “new” to young children, they pick it up quickly and despite the concerns some have, they don’t confuse their dominant language with a second one.

Little Pim is a foreign language learning program for young children.  Available in 10 languages, these award-winning foreign language immersion DVDs teach simple words and phrases for everyday activities.

The Little Pim series uses the Entertainment Immersion method to teach, which engages a child’s natural love of play, watching real kids and learning through repetition.  Children get very attached to “Little Pim’ their panda bear teacher.

Each Little Pim DVD focuses on sixty words and phrases which are typically also learned at the same time in the toddler’s primary language, this provides a critical foundation for language acquisition.

The DVDs are 35 minutes long, and split into 7 different 5 minute segments, which is just right for a toddler’s attention span.  The soundtrack on the DVDs are set up in such a way that there is enough time between the words and phrases for the parent to encourage the child to repeat them.  Simple sentences are broken down and repeated often for maximum understanding and retention.  The neat part is if the parent has no knowledge of the language they can learn along.

We’re currently using the French DVDs for Amber even though she is in high school.  With no previous knowledge of the language, and little success with other French teaching curriculum, starting from where language basics begin made sense.  I’m not sure how well it would go over with a high school boy, but Amber finds Little Pim and the small children and babies quite cute!  Here’s what she had to say about it.

I like the fact that each lesson just has a few vocabulary words and it’s not overwhelming like some of the books or software I’ve tried using.  It’s just enough to have a good concept of what the words relate to when you’re finished watching the show.  Because they say the word, have the word written on the screen, and show you a picture, it’s easier to remember the word of the item in French when I see the object in the kitchen.  Words like apple, banana, spoon and fork are things I see everyday so the visuals from the DVD help me to concentrate on what I’ve been learning. 

Also the repetition is good, because they start off short with just “I eat” and then when you have that down pat, Little Pim goes on to “an apple”, and then “I eat an apple”.  Because of the format, it’s not stressful or annoying to watch either, and Little Pim is kind of cute!

You can learn morea bout Little Pim, the languages they offer along with their entire product selection at www.littlepim.com.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received the products mentioned above for free for review purposes from Little Pim. I was not required to write a positive review and this product may not have the same results for all people, please do additional research of your own when purchasing products mentioned in reviews. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

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