London, England – If you ask a school administrator why you often see classrooms of older students being paired with classrooms of younger children as “buddies” you will frequently get the same answer. Modeling the behaviors of older children is one of the primary ways that younger children learn. This same principle has now been applied to learning foreign languages, and has been made available worldwide in a free to download iPhone app called “Little Chatterbox” by the Appy Learning Company.

Little Chatterbox is a unique language learning app that allows kids to interact in an educational, fun, and productive setting. Older children who are native speakers act as “virtual teachers” to teach younger children as many as 300 words through repetition and mini games in another language.

Another reason the app uses video instead of just audio to teach words is so children can see the mouth movements, which helps better understand how words are pronounced. Speech voice divorced from a face is much harder to comprehend, that’s why it’s so difficult to speak on the phone in a foreign language. By watching native speakers as they enunciate, children will pick up vital cues to help them pronounce new words confidently.

The app focuses on environments that children will be familiar with such as school or home, and helps them acquire key “building block” vocabulary in their new language.

“We recommend that children who are trying to learn vocabulary play the game for 10 minutes per day” said Little Chatterbox creator Viviane Lorans “if possible with a parent, and if possible repeating the words aloud, this really helps memorization”.

Little Chatterbox features 8 languages including Mandarin, Spanish, Russian, French, German, Hebrew, Japanese and English (both UK and US English!) with more languages coming soon. The app offers every combination of the 8 languages possible, meaning that you could be an English speaker learning German, or a Mandarin speaker learning Hebrew! The app also supports children who are learning two languages simultaneously with bilingual and monolingual settings.

Pricing and Availability:
The app has been approved and recommended by the Independent Parents Choice Foundation and is available worldwide in the iTunes App Store with a free trial available. Additional word packs can be purchased for $3.99 or all words can be unlocked for $9.99 (USD).

Little Chatterbox for Kids 2.0
Download from iTunes
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Formed in 2017 by Viviane Lorans, the Appy Learning Co is committed to improving early childhood education in the field of foreign language through new technologies. All Material and Software (C) Copyright 2018 Appy Learning Co. All Rights Reserved. Apple, the Apple logo, iPhone, iPod and iPad are registered trademarks of Apple Inc. in the U.S. and/or other countries. Other trademarks and registered trademarks may be the property of their respective owners.