TalkBox.mom teaches foreign languages in the natural way a child learns language by exposure and practice. It is designed for the whole family to learn together, making it a great choice for homeschool families.
The goal of the program is to develop functional fluency in speaking. You can choose Spanish, French, Italian, German, Portuguese, Chinese (Mandarin), Japanese, Russian Romanian, Hebrew, or Korean.
TalkBox.mom lays a foundation that emphasizes listening and talking rather than reading and writing. After a year or two, students can begin reading (if they are not already reading box components) and copywork. Later, dictation and writing on their own can be added, then formal grammar.
Themed Boxes and the App
Themed boxes provide resources used in conjunction with the TalkBox.mom app on your phone, tablet, or computer. A portable device is best so you can practice wherever you go. You can purchase individual boxes or save by subscribing to have a new box delivered every one, two, or three months, depending on how fast you intend to work. (You can change your delivery schedule.) Once you purchase a Talk Box, you have lifetime access to the app and website for that box, and it is not transferrable.
From the very beginning, you will practice phrases and complete sentences rather than individual words. On the app, a native speaker first says each word of a phrase or sentence clearly, then repeats them in a normal cadence as a sentence. I find this extremely helpful since one of the big challenges when hearing new languages is knowing when one word ends and another begins. The app also allows time to repeat the phrase or sentence immediately. The app shows the English meaning, but it does not speak it. You can “heart” phrases and sentences on the app so those you are working on come up on your home screen.
After practicing with the app, a parent or other responsible family member uses the phrases and sentences as often as possible in daily life, with children responding in the foreign language as much as they can. There are no grammar worksheets, vocabulary lists, or tests, although parents and older children might study the sentences and phrases on the laminated guide sheets, posters, cards, and other resources.
The themed boxes gradually progress in difficulty, and nine boxes are available as of March 2024:
- Snacks & Kitchen
- Actions, Rooms & Games
- First Bathroom
- Drinks & Dining
- Second Bathroom
- Playground & Small Talk
- Clothing & Weather
- Chores & Cleaning
- Arts & Crafts
Challenges
Each box has three or four different components (called challenges in the program), all based on the box’s subject(s). For example, the Snacks & Kitchen box has three challenges: two guide sheets listing the phrases and sentences that are spoken on the app, posters with images and words for quick reference, and a set of Challenge cards. The posters should be posted in the kitchen, bathroom, or other high-traffic area for continual exposure as you work through the guide and the app. The Challenge cards each have three related sentences in both the foreign language and English. For instance, a card titled “el plato” uses plato in three different sentences, such as “¿Necesitas un plato?,” which means “Do you need a plate?” Placing each of these cards near the pertinent items (e.g., near the cupboard with plates) reminds you to use these sentences whenever possible. Vocabulary on the Challenge cards goes beyond that of the guide sheets. For instance, in the Snacks & Kitchen box, the guide and posters focus primarily on food while the Challenge cards add words for dishes, utensils, and other kitchen equipment and furnishings. (The guide sheets, posters, and cards are all laminated for durability.)
The challenges in each box can be quite different. The Playground & Small Talk box’s first challenge has four, laminated guide pages with illustrations, phrases, and sentences. There is no poster for this box since you are likely to be practicing at a park. The second challenge is the Playground Guide, eight laminated pages with illustrations, phrases, and sentences that build on the more basic vocabulary from the guide pages. The third challenge focuses on small talk. It has printed pages that introduce common conversations such as asking a person’s name or age. Laminated sheets cover months, numbers up to 100, and names of the letters in Spanish.
The Arts & Crafts box includes actual drawing and craft projects, providing contexts in which to use the new phrases and sentences. It also includes three craft videos in the app. Students pause when they hear unfamiliar words and write them on the provided page. They guess at their meanings, then check the app’s transcripts to discover or verify the answers. This box is ninth in order, so by this time, students should have acquired sufficient vocabulary to understand most of what is being said on the videos.
In addition to the boxes, you have access to printables, such as Progress Trackers and Challenge Checklists. Boxes include one of some of these printables, but you might need more.
How It Works
Parents choose which phrases and sentences to practice, although they should generally be used in the approximate order presented. Everyone in the family practices repeating new phrases and sentences after listening to the app, and then with each other. If an entire phrase or sentence is too hard, a person can work on part of it at a time.
The family should work on no more than five phrases or sentences at a time, generally practicing each at least ten times. Each challenge should take anywhere from one week to a month to complete. That means you might take one to three months to complete a box. I can envision taking even longer to complete some boxes, such as Snacks & Kitchen. However, the instructions say you should not keep working on every challenge until everyone has mastered it, or you might get stuck. Do as well as you can, then move on. For most families, revisiting a box or a particular challenge later is a great way to review and pick up phrases you didn’t master the first time around.
The app offers advice for families that want to get up to speed with a new language as quickly as possible. Those families can complete each challenge in one week, selecting only the most important phrases and sentences to learn, and practicing more frequently each day. Family members might master ten of them or more in a week, but whatever the case, you move on to the next challenge. Interestingly, TalkBox.mom was originally designed to be completed at the rate of one box per month, so this is not unrealistic.
The various challenges offer different ways to practice. Most foreign language programs use a particular form of lesson all the way through a course. I very much appreciate the way TalkBox.mom changes the methodology to suit both the content and the level of learning.
Students are gradually exposed to grammar. For example, in the Spanish course, the very first lessons use different verb forms that identify who is being spoken to, such as “¿Quieres uvas?” to ask, “Do you (singular) want grapes?” and “¿Quieren uvas?” to ask, “Do you (more than one person) want grapes?” Children will usually pick up the difference with repeated practice rather than formal grammar lessons.
I have to comment on the amount of instructions since they are everywhere in this program—on the website, on the app, in every box, on the folders within the boxes, on videos, and in several emails. While some of them address different aspects, all I needed at first was a simple summary of steps one, two, and three. While there is helpful information in them, some of it is repetitive, and much of it can wait. It’s important that you not think the program is more complicated than it is. All you need to do is get the app set up, put up the snacks poster, and start listening and saying the phrases and sentences, practicing for five to fifteen minutes a day. You can figure everything else out as you go.
Optional Phrase Book
Use Spanish at Home (or the language of your choice) is a book with more than 1,750 phrases taught in a manner similar to that of the boxes. They are organized under alphabetical themes. For instance, the section for the letter B begins with the baby bag, the babysitter, and the backyard, with several phrases under each heading. The TalkBox.mom app has the same type of audio support as do the boxes.
Simple instructions are on the reverse side of a Mini-Snack Chart that comes with the book. You also get a Weekly Tracker, a small, laminated card you can mark with an erasable marker.
The book is great for identifying phrases not covered in the boxes that you use frequently and have plenty of opportunities to practice.
Summary
TalkBox.mom makes the process of learning a foreign language as natural as possible for most homeschool families, and all ages can participate together to the best of their ability. It teaches words, phrases, and sentences that families actually use. Parents need to be very actively involved, but it only requires about 15 minutes a day.
