One of my greatest desires for my children and homeschooling is for them to graduate knowing a second (and possibly third) language. You may have noticed but traveling is one of the most important things to me right under faith and family. I love for my children to gain a wider perspective on the world, an understanding for other cultures and an appreciation for humanity. I’d also love for them to have the ability to connect with individuals as we travel too.
The challenge is I do not know a second language except for my two years of learning from a very grumpy French high school teacher. So I was excited to learn about Mango Languages and what it offers students. The program is mainly geared toward upper elementary, junior high, and high school students. The program works best for students who are comfortable reading in English, however, families with young children can learn together. I also love the fact that the conversations are geared toward traveling since this is what our foundational level language learning will consist of.
The truth is that the program was a little harder for my seven year old then I had hoped. But she got really excited when she found out she could learn Mandarin (and Pirate!) and so she often is found learning other languages after her French lessons. I myself have found the program extremely helpful as I try to learn Spanish. Learning a language is not easy. So I love that Mango focuses on vocabulary, pronunciation, and culture. One of my all time favorite features on Mango is the voice comparison feature. You can record and compare yourself saying certain phrases in comparison to a native speaker. This is SUPER helpful because a lot of times I would think I was saying it right and I was completely off! Did I mention there are over 60 languages to study????
Click here to watch a quick video on how it works: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zm3UER97ebk
From a homeschooling stand point I absolutely love the cultural notes. It’s definitely the part I find most fascinating and have noticed that we get into some good discussions because of them. As we prepare to become a full-time travel family in the very near future Mango has really helped my family realize just how much of the world we have to see and experience. We are only one month in to using the curriculum so check back in as the next few months we will make some updates on our language progression!
*Mango provided us a homeschool account to try out the curriculum but our experiences and opinions are our own!
