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Name:   Learnables Foreign Language Program
Topics
 
 
Foreign Language
URL
 
 
http://www.learnables.com/
Description
 
 
The Learnables is an auditory-based approach to learning a foreign language. The kit comes with a set of audiotapes and a booklet. No English is used at all; students learn the language through the foreign language tapes and, initially, accompanying pictures in the instructional booklet. After a student acquires some proficiency in the beginnings of the language, the booklets introduce words, phrases, sentences, and paragraphs written in that language (still no English translation). Both beginning and intermediate courses are available.
Average Rating
 
 
Last Updated
 
 
4/28/2006
 
Comments

Contributed by: DITD Team Member  
Rating:
Profoundly gifted children are often intensely curious about foreign language learning, and like to begin learning a language years before it is ordinarily taught in schools. But if you use this program, make sure that your child is predominantly an AUDITORY learner. This program is definitely for auditory learners; visual-spatial learners are likely to have a very difficult time with these materials and this program. However, for a child who is primarily an auditory learner, he or she should fly with this program and like it very much. Students can move at their own, individual pace; for profoundly gifted children who like immersion learning and a fast, auditory presentation, this program works well.
 
Contributed by: Other  
Rating:
Our experience is with the French version. Except for the quizzes, we find the tapes make great "car learning" -- we pop in the tape on the way to other activities. The quizzes are 10 multiple choice questions -- the audio tape says a word/phrase/sentence and the student selects the corresponding picture from 3-4 options. They recommend that you listen to the tapes before doing the matching, but my daughter usually did the matching by reading and then used the tapes to check herself. These, too, take only a few minutes a piece. We typically did 2-4 exercises per day. At the very end of each lesson, there are 1-4 exercises without tape that require the student to fill in the blank from a word bank. This resource does a good job of telling stories using the pictures and words students have learned. However, I've seen claims that each level is equivalent to a year of high school language and this is clearly not true. Some content notes you may want to be aware of: *In Level 1, the mother spanks the misbehaving baby. *In Level 2, one of the first lessons introduces a burglar with a gun who demands money at the bank and also robs a jewelry store. The burglars are caught, so good triumphs and it is done is an old cartoon style. I believe that it is possible to buy the Basic Structures part without the Learnables listening/picture part. People who learn by reading (but still need to know how it sounds) might have more luck with this approach. Note that there is no emphasis on speaking. The Learnables idea is that you will learn to speak by listening. This is true to some extent, but I think to develop good conversational ability, most students will eventually have to add an outside tutor who can help them correct their pronunciation & grammar mistakes.
 
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