The Little Linguist's Alphabet

My name is Úna and I am ‘Maman’ to two bilingual little girls (English-French). I have created a beautiful, clever, multilingual alphabet, which works in 6 languages, and is currently funding on Kickstarter.

The alphabet, which contains 26 objects starting with the same letter in English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch and German, aims to make life easier for little linguists speaking any combination of these languages, as now ‘D is always for Dinosaur’ no matter which of these languages a child is thinking in.

My husband is French, and so my girls continually switch between languages a la maison, and do so easily and naturally. However, when it came to learning the alphabet, I witnessed some confusion due to this language switching. I was concerned that this confusion was affecting their attitude to their second language, and so I made a simple bilingual alphabet to simplify things for them. The project then grew to include 6 languages as I started to think about it on a more global scale.

I view the alphabet as not just for little linguists, but also as a nice opportunity to introduce the idea of different languages and cultures to children at a young age and, most importantly, to find similarities between them. It also enables monolingual and bilingual children to learn side-by-side and progress together in an inclusive atmosphere.

The alphabet comprises a nice mix of interesting objects that little global citizens will love to learn about and the illustrations, by Gabrijela Sklepić, are in a cute but realistic style.

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The alphabet has been trialled in two French immersion schools here in Melbourne and the feedback has been extremely positive. It was particularly encouraging to students lacking confidence in French as it gave them a chance to perform well in a French-speaking environment.

If you would like to pre-order a copy of the alphabet or simply support this project, please visit the Kickstarter campaign page at http://kck.st/1Bl6uPc (or click on the 'K' in the video above). If a goal of AUD 7,000 (about USD 6,000) is reached by December 12th, ‘The Little Linguist’s Alphabet’ will be produced as a poster and e-book (with audio).  Supplemental material such as coloring-in pages (with editable font) are also available.

 

A little more about me: I am Irish, Australia and a Scientist. I recently founded ‘Love Your Lingo’ with a mission to inspire little linguists to love their languages. I have many more ideas I would like to make a reality! If you would like to be kept informed, please see www.loveyourlingo.com, or follow me on facebook 'Love Your Lingo', or on twitter @loveyourlingo.

Merci beaucoup!

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