Learn English With El Chavo
By Mieke VanderBorght,
Common Sense Media Reviewer
Common Sense Media Reviewers
Videos, activity packets miss the mark on language learning.
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What you will—and won't—find in this app.
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Videos and Photos
Learn English With El Chavo
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What’s It About?
LEARN ENGLISH WITH EL CHAVO introduces useful English vocabulary according to categories such as shapes, family, or transportation. Each unit has a video story featuring Chavo, a young boy, and other characters from his neighborhood. Text labels highlight new words. Some words also get introduced with text and a narrator reading the words aloud. Units have a handful of activities to review new vocabulary, such as coloring, label matching, and sentence completion.
Is It Any Good?
The idea of watching engaging videos to introduce language and reviewing and cementing new vocabulary with interactive activities is great, but this free app misses the mark. It's great to see a program specifically targeted toward Spanish-speaking families. Much of the text is in Spanish, which can support non-English-speaking parents in helping their kids -- and themselves -- learn English. Unfortunately, Learn English With El Chavo really misses the mark. The videos may make kids laugh, but the humor is often mean-spirited. Though there's a short section of the video in which kids hear new vocabulary words, there are often so many words introduced at the same time -- and without context -- that it's hard to remember them all. The rest of the time, only a simple text label marks new words, forcing kids to read the label to learn the word without ever hearing it said out loud. Activities are dry and minimally interactive and missing many standard learning supports. For example, once kids make an answer choice, they can't change it. And at the end of the activity, kids see how many responses they got wrong, but they don't know which were wrong, so there's no opportunity for them to learn from their mistakes. While it has a great premise, it needs some improvements before it's worth a spot on your app playlist.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about using Learning English With El Chavo or other learning supports to learn English together. Parents can act as role models for motivating kids to learn, and it can be a great opportunity for family bonding.
Read books, signs, labels, and more in English to point out English words all around you. Watch movies in English together as a family and talk about the movie and the words your kids don't know.
App Details
- Devices: iPad, Android
- Subjects: Language & Reading: vocabulary
- Pricing structure: Free
- Release date: September 25, 2015
- Category: Education
- Publisher: Televisa
- Version: 4.3
- Minimum software requirements: iOS 6.0 or later; Android 2.3.3 and up
- Last updated: September 29, 2020
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