We’re multi-lingual! ABC English & Me can now speak nine languages, including English! We’re delighted to announce the new language translations in Kindermusik@Home for ABC English & Me. Kindermusik@Home materials feature the interactive songs, stories, and activities from class — in an easily downloadable format for a variety of mobile and at-home computer devices.
And now, parents and caregivers can translate the Kindermusik@Home Web site into a preferred language:
Traditional Chinese
Simplified Chinese
Brazilian Portuguese
French
Italian
German
Greek
Spanish
Step 1: Log on to my.kindermusik.com
Parents and caregivers enrolled in ABC English & Me login to the @Home site at my.kindermusik.com Here, you’ll find all the stories and songs from class, plus special activities you can do together at home.
Step 2: Select your language
Select your preferred language from the drop down menu.
Where do I find my materials?
When the Web site refreshes, you’ll see instructions on the Web site written in your preferred language. Explore the site!
Access the Kindermusik@Home materials in the lower right-hand corner. Click on each one of the four icons – music, lyrics, stories, and activities. Soon, your computer will download an archive zip file of all the activities featured in class.
Look for instructions in your preferred language and follow along.
What do the Kindermusik@Home materials include?
All the songs and stories from stories from class in the English language. Instructions on how to download the music to a computer will appear in the parent’s chosen language. Stories
You can download the illustrated story from class – written in English – or simply read along together on your home computer, tablet or mobile device. Activities
Extra activities you can play together at home – such as a memory game featuring animals or vocabulary words from that mont’s class. Lyrics
Lyric sheets to all the songs from class. Music
Sing together the English-language nursery rhymes! Enjoy the music and movement activities from class and do them together at home. Listen to ABC English & Me’s wide variety of songs in a range of musical styles.
Would you like to know more about the research-based approach of ABC English & Me? Click here for more information. We’d love to show you how it works.
This video demonstrates the Total Physical Response approach to second language learning and shows a parent and child at home using one of the recorded activities from ABC English & Me.
It all started with movement. When James Asher, a professor of psychology at San Jose State University in California, started asking why young children were dropping out of school, he found a link to second language acquisition:
“The most difficult learning task for both children and adults may be the attempt to acquire a second language in school. A number of studies have shown that few students – often less than 5% who start in a second language – continue to proficiency. This lack of success is striking when compared to the language achievement of most six-year-olds, who without schooling have mastered all the essential parts of the individual’s native language.”
Searching for a solution, Asher started looking at why some young learners developed a second language skill and why others didn’t. The link was movement. What he found is that children who could hear a movement word, and demonstrate comprehension of that movement word by doing it – such as jump, dance, or run – were better able to learn and retain the new information over a period of time.
He developed a method for second language learning centered on movement and wrote a book about it,Learning Another Language Through Actions: The Complete Teacher’s Guidebook.
Asher called this physical approach to teaching a second language: total physical response or TPR.
In study after study for 25 years, laboratory experiments and classroom observations have demonstrated results that were extremely positive. When the instructor skillfully uses the target language to direct the student’s behavior, understanding of the utterance is transparent, often in only one exposure. Also, the understanding is achieved without stress and then retained for weeks, months, and even years. Language-body communications is a fascinating and powerful principle of learning. It seems to be a universal principle that holds true for language including sign language for the deaf. It seems to hold true for an age group that has been studied from children to senior citizens.
This approach is an essential part of the ABC English & Me program. And we were so delighted to watch a parent and child share the joy of learning – and moving – at home.
It’s the kind of learning that makes you jump for joy.
Would you like to know more about the research-based approach of ABC English & Me? Click here for more information. We’d love to show you how it works.
