ThePolyglotsintheTown

Children hear the familiar language of greetings. New town-related vocabulary is introduced at hotspots, including a crane, spice shop, garbage truck, library and supermarket. Children also hear familiar counting of 1, 2, 3 when they tap on the school.

The Polyglots in the Town playspace has buildings, leisure spaces, a construction site with a crane, pizza cafe, supermarket, spice shop and library. Children hear the chosen language for each of these spaces, and familiar counting coming from the school. The town has fun elements, including a lift with an intrepid window cleaner. Children can enjoy animating characters and vehicles to produce movement and sounds.

This activity provides opportunities for children to grasp how familiar words encountered in previous apps can be combined to make meaning.

Children create their own building structures using two-dimensional geometric shapes. They can choose combinations of objects and can manipulate these to change their size and colour. Children can hear the words for the different colours, shapes and sizes of the blocks as they tap on each item. The in-built physics engine creates more fun as children learn they can balance the shapes to prevent them falling or choose to let them topple. The created building will appear in the playspace when children exit the activity.

The focus language is tailored for each book and includes revision of key phrases and vocabulary.

In this learning experience, children encounter six mini-books with scenes and characters from the previous six apps. On the first three pages of each book, familiar characters model key language from each of the apps. Children see their own image on the final page through the front-facing camera, and are encouraged to take a photo and speak into the microphone. In this way, they are invited to share the narrative of the book. They can also read along with the script in the chosen language.

Children encounter familiar foods from previous apps, including strawberry, broccoli, banana and egg. They discover new vocabulary including mushroom, cheese, tomato sauce and meat. Children have opportunities to produce language when they are prompted to repeat the pizza order using the microphone.

Children take pizza orders from a character by selecting the requested item from a menu. They make the pizza, choosing from a range of ingredients. When they are ready, they tap the pizza to place it in the oven. When cooked, a chef delivers the pizza in a box and calls out the order number twice in the chosen language. Children are prompted, via the microphone animation, to repeat the pizza order to waiting customers, one of whom collects the pizza and leaves.

The vocabulary for numbers 1 to 10, greetings and farewells are central to this activity. Children also revise specific vocabulary associated with each of the scenes accessed via the lift.

In this learning experience, children take on the role of a lift operator who selects buttons on a number panel to take the lift to different floors. Children listen as characters enter and request specific floors. When characters are taken to their requested floors they move out into familiar scenes from previous apps and interact with the space. Children move the character back and forth between the lift and the floor space to enact the role-play.

This app revises how to request something politely as well as words for colours, food and drink. Children hear and revise language for single food and drink items, then hear the customer request these items in various combinations.

Children take on the role of a shopkeeper, listening to a customer’s order and moving requested items into a shopping basket. They enjoy familiar role-play of opening the cash register, hearing numbers and placing coins in the register. Additional items are added to the supermarket shelves as children progress.

Song lyrics include the language of farewell as familiar characters say goodbye to Talo as he returns home.

The song provides a conclusion to the fun and playful activities that children have experienced together with the Polyglots over the course of the apps. Just as the app 1 song began with the language of greetings and introductions, this song is one of farewell as Talo is waved goodbye at the airport on his journey home.