|
|
|
In This Issue:
• Feature Article:
Why Your Children Should Learn a Less-Commonly-Taught Language
• Language Lizard Update:
New titles, new language
• Product Review: Row, Row, Row Your Boat
• Lizard Recommends:
Additional resources for less-commonly-taught languages
• *Subscriber Special Offer*: 10% Discount on Row, Row, Row Your Boat
Please add [email protected] to your address book or whitelist in your email program so that you receive all future issues!
To change your subscription, see link at end of email.
If this issue has been forwarded to you, please sign up here to receive our e-newsletter. |
|
|
Language Lizard Update
Dear Reader:
At Language Lizard we always have been great advocates of teaching and learning languages. There are well-documented social, cultural, cognitive and economic benefits associated with language learning, and the benefits impact both the individual and the community. In this issue's feature article, guest author Susan C. H. Siu makes a good case for learning less-commonly-taught languages.
Language Lizard supports learners of less-commonly-taught languages by offering materials in a wide variety of languages. One of our newer titles, Goose Fables, offers our first Hebrew-English dual language book. Our new board book, Row, Row, Row Your Boat (reviewed in our Book Review section below) is offered in Hmong, Haitian Creole and many other languages so you can start exposing children to language learning early!
On a separate note, many of you have been asking about our upcoming product, the Recorder Pen, a revolutionary tool that allows you to listen to (and record) text and special features when touching the pages of many of our newer titles. The introduction of this product has been delayed while work is being done on enhanced recordings, software developments and other technical improvements. We will provide more information on our website and in an upcoming newsletter once this wonderful tool becomes available.
We wish you a wonderful summer.
Happy reading!
Anneke Forzani
Founder and President
Language Lizard, LLC |
|
 |
 Book Review: Row, Row, Row Your Boat
Illustrated by Annie Kubler
Hardcover
Ages 0-3
Review by Maureen Pugh
This sturdy, oversized (it runs a little over 8 inches square) board book brings the classic song to life with a couple of giggle-producing twists - at least they made my 5-year old giggle!
The text runs through the classic poem three times, changing the ending the second and third times through. Toddlers will love the last verse, which has the reader row the boat to the “shore,” and then ends with ”if you see a lion, don’t forget to roar!”
Although this book is targeted to the under-three crowd, personally I have found that dual language board books have served me well beyond the toddler years. The repetition helps reinforce the language skills I am trying to teach, and sometimes it is nice to have a shorter book to read.
The book’s bigger size allows for the larger eye-catching illustrations, which depict babies of different races rocking to and fro together. The back cover shows the notes to the song in case you might want to play it on an instrument.
Row, Row, Row Your Boat is a vailable in English with translations in Arabic, Bengali, Chinese Simplified, Chinese Traditional, Farsi, French, Haitian Creole, Hmong, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Somali, Spanish, Tagalog , Urdu and Vietnamese.
If you’re interested in purchasing this book please visit the webpage at http://www.languagelizard.com/Row_Row_Row_Your_Boat_p/row.htm
|
|
|
Special Subscriber Offer: 10% Discount on
Row, Row, Row Your Boat
Through July 15, 2010 we are offering a 10% discount on Row, Row, Row Your Boat. Simply apply Coupon Code CCS-ROW upon checkout to receive the discount.
|
|
 |
Feature Article: Why Your Children Should Learn a Less-Commonly-Taught Language
by Susan Cazenavette Herrick Siu
More than 300 distinct languages other than English are now spoken in the United States. According to the U. S. Census Bureau's 2009 Statistical Abstract, those with the most native speakers in this country are Spanish, Chinese, Tagalog, French, Vietnamese, German, and Korean (all with numbers of speakers in the millions), followed by Russian, Arabic, and Italian.
Other languages with large numbers of speakers (in no particular order) include Portuguese, French Creole, Yiddish, Greek, Polish, Hebrew, Hungarian, Navajo, Laotian, Thai, Hmong, Hindi, Urdu, and Serbo-Croatian.
The most- commonly-taught languages are Spanish, French, and German, which do happen to be among the top-ten most-commonly spoken languages in the U.S., but also all happen to be Indo-European languages closely related to English. All of the world's other languages are classified as "less-commonly-taught."
Many people decide to learn a language (or have their children learn a language) because of the number of people who speak that language (whether in the U.S. or abroad). Yet there are many good reasons why you or your child should consider learning a less-commonly-taught language:
- To get to know their family history. Many North Americans, even if they no longer speak a language other than English, Spanish, French, or German at home, have ancestors who did. Did you perhaps have a Native American great-grandfather or a Ukrainian immigrant grandmother, or are you descended from African slaves who spoke Mende, Fula, or another West African language? Or perhaps your child's connection to a less-commonly-taught language is even closer, as for my niece Sophia, who is learning Georgian in order to communicate with her grandmother and cousins in the Republic of Georgia and in the United States.
- To read or do research in another language. Do your high-school-aged children want to read the Bible, the Torah, or the Buddhist scriptures in their original languages? Do they love modern Egyptian novels, Japanese comic books, or Chinese Taoist poetry? Do they want to attend school abroad? Do they plan to study history, art history, international studies, computers, languages, comparative literature, translation, or linguistics in college? If so, they might want to start studying a less-commonly-taught language now.
- To make new friends in their community. If you live in a community where less-commonly-taught languages are spoken, learning one of those languages may help your children make new friends and connections within the community. This may be true even if you don't live in a big city. In Lewiston, Maine, where I live, for example, there is a large Somali community and knowing the Somali language would be helpful to anyone attending the public schools as well as to anyone involved with community organizations, from the library to the farmer's market to the hospitals. (See Newsweek's very interesting article, “The Refugees Who Saved Lewiston,” on the Web at http://www.newsweek.com/id/180035).
- To travel and make new friends abroad. If your family is going on vacation to Ireland, your children would benefit from learning some Irish Gaelic. If your child plans to go on an exchange program to India, she might want to learn some Hindi, Gujarati, or one of India's several hundred other mother tongues. If you or your spouse will be stationed in Kuwait or South Korea in the near future, your children could benefit greatly from learning to speak Arabic or Korean.
- To help save a dying language from extinction. More than half of the world's approximately 6000 languages are now considered "endangered," which means that there will be no native speakers left a hundred years from now. Many have only one, ten, or a few hundred speakers as I write; others have become extinct in the recent past. Some communities are making efforts to save their endangered languages from extinction by teaching them to both children and adults. Linguists are preserving others on paper or in audio and video formats so that these languages can be studied even when they are no longer spoken. For more information, please visit the Endangered Language Alliance website at http://endangeredlanguagealliance.org.
There are a number of resources that can help your family in this vital and empowering mission of learning less-commonly-taught languages (see the "Language Recommends" section below for suggestions). I wish you and your children the best of luck as you embark on your language learning adventures.
Susan C. H. Siu, a writer, linguist, and mother of three, is Editor-in-Chief of World’s Edge Books & Publishing (http://worldsedgebooks.com), a small publishing company specializing in foreign-language titles. Susan speaks French and some Chinese, Korean, Spanish, and Italian. Her book Georgian Language for Parents and Children, Book I, co-authored with Darby Lezhava and Marico Maskharashvili, is scheduled for release at the end of May 2010. She also maintains the LinguistKids blog (http://linguistkids.blogspot.com) with the aim of providing resources to parents, educators, and librarians who want to help children learn languages, understand cultures, and become citizens of the world.
|
|
 |
A Favorite Quote
"Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover."
Mark Twain, writer
|
|
 |
Lizard Recommends
For those of you desiring to learn more about less-commonly-taught languages, guest author Susan C. H. Siu recommends the following additional resources:
The University of Minnesota maintains a website through its Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition (CARLA). This website provides listings of K-12 and college/university course offerings in less-commonly taught languages, lists of relevant organizations, and even audio and video files that can be used by educators free of charge. Check it out at the following URL: http://www.carla.umn.edu/lctl/.
The Ethnologue project aims to provide a comprehensive catalog of the world’s living languages. The online version is available at http://www.ethnologue.com/.
|
|
 |
About Language Lizard
Language Lizard, LLC aims to enrich children's lives with language and culture. The Company believes that children will be inspired to learn languages and connect with other cultures if they are exposed to fun and creative learning materials early in their lives.
Language Lizard currently offers award-winning dual-language children's products in over 40 languages. To find out more about our company and products, or to sign up for this free e-newsletter, please visit www.LanguageLizard.com.
|
|
| |
|