Hello? Books speaking

Case study 1.3: Talking books

We have been looking at a series of case studies where the use of technology was deeply significant for the developing of language learning. Most of them were interesting to read, but I have chosen one to reflect upon: Talking books. Take a look:

Case study:	Talking books
Where:	Hampshire, UK
Participants:	Pre-school children whose first language is not English
Webpage used:	Mantra Lingua’s TalkingPENs (www.mantralingua.com)

 

This study was aimed at children between the ages of 3 and 5 whose language spoken at home was not English. Some well-known books were chosen and a retelling was made of each one of them, in English as well as in the languages most spoken in the local communities. The site the EMTAS (Ethnic Minority and Traveller Achievement Service: http://www3.hants.gov.uk/education/ema/) used to record the retellings was Mantra Lingua’s TalkingPENs (www.mantralingua.com). The bilingual books were then made available for the children to loan and then share the book orally with their parents.

I thought this project was wonderful, not only because of the clever use of technology but also and most importantly because it favoured children sharing something meaningful with their parents. Too often we are concerned with using technology to connect our students with people from other countries, just because we want them to speak to native speakers of English. While this is fantastic, and it sure is profitable for our students, we tend to forget that we may also use English to enforce our closest relationships – with our parents! In my personal case, I started studying English at a relatively old age (9 years old): I mean I did not go to a bilingual school to start studying English at 2. My mother does not speak English at all, and I know she felt bad for not being able to help me while I was studying… I would have liked to have something like this to share with her… Of course, I was 9 in 1996 so chances of this happening then were very slim or nonexistent at that time! J So I believe it is great that we do not lose sight of the fact that the main purpose for language learning is communication, and it is a great idea to help our students develop their communicative skills with their parents first and foremost.

Now, over to YOU! What do you think?