Learning foreign languages easily and bilingual audio books : Plus, just like with any e-book, once a bilingual e-book is downloaded onto a Kindle, phone or tablet, it’s completely mobile. Since reading enables language acquisition, anything that makes it easy to take target language reading along wherever you go is definitely worth adding to your program.
Did you know that a woman by the name of Pura Belpre was New York City’s first Puerto Rican librarian? She came to the U.S. in 1921, carrying the cuentos folkloricos (folktales) of her homeland. She found work as a bilingual assistant, where she retold those stories from Puerto Rico. Today, generations of children and storytellers continue to share her tales and celebrate her legacy. In honor of this new story, we’ve put together a few reasons why we think it’s beneficial to read bilingual stories and diverse voices to your children.
As you know (perhaps after a distressing experience) when a well-meaning person tries to explain to someone in which way their beliefs are false, even dangerous, the good-willing person is coming up against a more and more solid wall. The more numerous and well documented his arguments, the more the listener will become deaf to his reasoning. It is a psychological fact that you must not fight, since the fight strengthens it. You have to bypass it. See additional information at Bilingual books – How to create your cult.
Many audiobooks are read by the author or include commentary by the author. A recording of The Fighing Ground by Avi, for example, includes an author interview in which he explains how he came up with the idea for the book. Joey Pigza Swallowed the Key is read by author Jack Gantos and also includes commentary about why he wrote the book. This information can provide students with a connection to the author as well as insight into the author’s thoughts and the writing process.
The children listened…. and their parents too. Listening was not felt as a chore but as a delight. So, we decided to prepare bilingual audiobooks from “classical” works. Then, we thought we should publish contemporary short works in at least 2 languages (by the way, if you are the happy author of a work up to 25.000 words, prepare to submit it.) We propose mostly human voices, because to listen to synthetic voices feels… synthetic. But, whatever their accent, the synthetic voices offer a faultless pronunciation, which is important for the student. So, we prepare some sound files with synthetic voices. Find additional details at Language Learning.