KOCHI: The British Council has launched a new app for children aged between six and 11. The app, ‘LearnEnglish Kids: Playtime’, will help kids build confidence in English speaking and improve spelling and understanding of vocabulary. It focuses mainly on improving listening skills and includes over 50 animated songs and stories that are grouped into themes such as Fairy Tales, British Tales and Classic Children’ songs. Each video comes with an engaging listen-and-record activity to encourage children to speak, as well as challenging games to improve understanding and spelling of words from the videos, stated a press release. “We explored the needs of children in India and designed the games to support and enhance the language children hear in the video. It allows them to explore a little more than simply watching video would. The listen-and-record activity encourages children to experiment with saying new words and phrases and compare their pronunciation with that of the narrator,” said Nirupa Fernandez, assistant director - English Digital Partnerships at the British Council India.
The app also features a parents section where parents can get feedback on their child’s progress in the app.
The app is available on iOS tablets and phones. The app is free to download with 20 videos and more videos are available through in-app purchasing or monthly subscription. More animated songs and stories will be added.
The British Council offers a collection of 13 apps written by English teachers and language experts to help learners of all ages practise and improve their English. For details, visit http://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/en/apps. English learning materials for children are also available at http://learnenglishkids.britishcouncil.org/en/