This 'Alex and Friends' story is the adventure and encounters of a young boy, Alex, flying his kite near his home on a windy day. It describes his journey and surroundings in simple but useful language to immerse the listener in the sounds and rhythm of the language, as spoken by native speakers.
My daughter, who is a natural linguist and went on to read languages at university, complanied to her French teacher
'How come I've been learning French for three years, and when I go there, I can't understand a word?'
These CDs can help. You are not tied to the computer, you can listen while exercising, doing chores, driving, or just sitting and chilling.
You can adapt your approach to your level, if needed, first consulting the transcript to recognise the words and structure, moving on to absorb the sentences as spoken, and finally to enjoy the story, and consolidate all the time and practice you have spent towards fluency in the language.
What gave us this idea?
The only time I had to brush up my forgotten Italian was while driving. At the time, there were few audiobooks available. The obvious answer was to create our own. So we devised this story.
From the book of illustrations: Six stones on the path, six blackbirds, six cakes at the little house in the forest
From the book of illustrations: Alex running along the beach strewn with twenty seven star fish on his way home
Why the picture book?
As we grow up and learn to speak our language, and even as we talk during our day, we use visual clues and cues such as pointing to the apple or dropped book.
Illustrating the story would help enormously with recognising the items the story referred to and committing 'eleven caterpillars', for instance, to memory.
A search of the internet led us to Holly Alp. Holly, living in Spain at the time, had an interest in improving her Spanish as well as illustrating our story. She produced these wonderful, detailed illustrations with numerous fine details, including a mouse hidden on each page.
So these CDs are now available for you to enjoy as well for brushing up or improving your understanding of spoken English, French, German, Italian, Spanish or Russian. Each has the transcript, and can be purchased with or without the A4 picture book.
For teachers
We have many learning activities available , based on the stories and characters in this book: word squares, finding and labelling eg animals within a picture, spot the differnce etc. We will be offering these on the website and via social media in the near furture.
Greetings cards
Visit our shop to see birthday card and (nearer the time) Christmas cards.