Little Chatterbox for Kids

Little Chatterbox for Kids is an extremely well-presented app that is clear and effective in what it sets out to do.  The rubric of the app seeks to instruct young learners – most appropriately, but not solely, aimed at the primary-school market.  Practically-speaking, the software is a good-sized app, which requires constant Internet connectivity if it is to function. From the start-up screen, the user can easily choose his/her language pairs for study and then will embark on their language-learning adventure.  At the user’s disposal there are eight language from which you can choose – English, Spanish, French, German, Russian, Hebrew, Mandarin, and Japanese. Within each language pairing, children have the option of choosing from a selection of up to sixteen contexts, such as undersea animals, the home, the school, the zoo, or the forest. Within each context, players are encouraged to tap on each of the relevant items and hear the word, both, in their native and then in the target language.  One of the stand-out aspects of this app is the manner in which the words are presented to the user.  All words are clearly enunciated by ‘child teachers’, with accompanying videos of them saying the words serving as a real motivational factor.  Furthermore, the provision of these videos will help young children mimic their peers, as a means to help them form sounds with which they may be less familiar.  This is an impressive and extremely child-friendly inclusion, and the pronunciation is very clear.

The app offers a progression from the receptive vocabulary learning, whereby the users have chosen a series of terms and subsequently heard and practised the words.  This development of four reinforcement games, require finding or matching some of the words seen earlier within the unit studied. These four games appear intermittently throughout the vocabulary-learning process, and recap the words that the user has recently accessed.  In two games, the user must match a picture of the word to the relevant video recording, another sees the words are presented on cards in a snap-like, memory matching game, and, finally, the is a game where children match pictures to silhouettes and hear the word spoken.  Each game is an effective tool to reinforce the prior learning process – not to mention, they are fun and will engage most users.

From an educator’s perspective, the relevant and clearly-presented content mean that this represents a useful addition to the language learning classroom, with vocabulary showcased in entertaining and extremely accurate ways.  However, one minor drawback could be the lack of score retention, with more competitive users not being able to note any formal record of progression.  That being said, this app serves the purpose of introducing language terms across a series of contexts in an effective and engaging way.  Therefore, the need to track progression will only be missed by a few users.

In conclusion, as an introductory app for language learning, it does represent an engaging and motivating piece of software, with the clear and entertaining presentation being its stand-out feature.  The potential for exploration beyond the sixteen contexts is somewhat limited, but again, this is not the scope of this app – which aims to introduce its users to new language as creatively as possible and to maximise their retention of these words.  Something which it does extremely well.

Little Chatterbox for Kids will be better suited for a younger user – namely in the primary school age group – who will most appreciate the graphics, the language introduction videos and the interactive games.  It will definitely be on my recommendation list for primary-level colleagues and students alike.