Home Schooling Adventures

• Mar. 22, 2009 - Auralog Tell Me More!

Ever wanted to learn a foreign language? Or have you thought about teaching your children one but was not sure where to begin or what program to go with?  Auralog Tell Me More has a program that is customized for homeschoolers. It uses the immersion technique.  It's like being dropped off in Paris and finding your way while learning the native tongue. Listening and interacting with the native culture.  We recently reviewed Tell Me More Homeschool French 5  Levels.  We were excitingly waiting to get this program.  We were so eager that every single time our faithful dog would bark we were scouting for the delivery of it.  When it arrived we were very impressed that it even came with a headset with a microphone so that you did not have to wait to get started. You had everything you need.  The excitement wore off as we struggled to get it installed and figure out what in the world we were suppose to be doing exactly? The start here now CD when inserted and installed on the computer. It didn't really tell me anything except that it was indeed on my computer. It was not allowing me to log in with my created account! So I moved on to the second DVD disc.  We got that installed and were still a bit challenged as to where to begin because we felt like we were missing something with the first disc not allowing us access to it. After a bit of struggling we put it away for a while.  All the disappointed faces that were sure they could do a better job than Mom and Dad were not happy that they had to wait a little longer!  We are very computer literate and could not figure out what we were doing wrong with that first CD install. Finally I gave in and contacted their 24/7 customer service. Wow, how great was it that within minutes I was up and running! It was a simple mistake on our part.  Not only great customer service but it's available to you 24/7 which is comforting!  My only complaint about this program is that it does not come with clear installation instructions or set up instructions. They are a bit vague on how to create a new account to log in. It also was a bit of a miff to try and figure out what you did once you got inside the program for the first time. The instructions merely  say log into your account or create a new one which seemed to prove very difficult for our household! It also was very vague on actually setting things up for the first time. However, once we got set up the smiles were back and so was the excitement!  We joyfully loved working this program every single day! There are three lesson modes with this program.  You choose which one fits each child or adult best!   One lesson mode is  Free-To-Rome where you can the entire pedagogical and linguistic context is available in six workshops and you can navigate freely through the lessons and activities. The next lesson mode is Guided Mode which is a learning path with a group of lessons and activities presented in order of increasing difficulty.  The last mode you can choose is the Dynamic Mode which takes you through activities that are automatically selected according to your original objectives and the results you obtain in each activity.  We worked through the Guided Mode. It seemed the best choice for us. The introductory CD was a great beginning to the actual 5 levels.  My older daughter worked quickly and accurately through the introductory CD.  She then moved onto level 1.  It was a total immersion into the language.  She really loved this approach. I also started in level 1 and found it very challenging! Challenging in a good way though! I was taught my first year of Spanish through immersion by my high school Spanish teacher who taught me more in that class than I learned the next three years in other Spanish classes that did not use immersion techniques. Tell Me More's one little box gives you 4 years of language learning!  You can create multiple accounts.  One for each child or adult in your house that is interested in learning a language.  They have lesson study guides for every lesson, showing the solution for every exercise and activity.  There are literally thousands of exercises.  They include a speech recognition system  that  you say the words into the headset microphone and it will correct your pronunciation of the words.  They have native French speaking persons who provide the speech on the program to help you develop correct pronunciation.  Tell Me More provides a waveform and pitch curve graph that helps you see where you need to improve.  We loved having the interactive conversations during the lessons. It is a fun way to truly learn the language.  As time has passed we are getting better at our pronunciation of the language and our interactive lesson conversations are going much better.  In addition to what you get in the box and the original installation of the your disc,  Tell Me More provides you with some online services as well.  The EuroNews Lesson in partnership with the television station is available every week. This is about a 30 minute lesson based off a current news event in the country of your language that you are studying. Tell Me More not only offers testing and progress charts through the software you install but their are also online tests that allow you to assess your level at anytime during your training.  The Language Achievement Test helps you assess your level and compare it to the levels defined by the Council of Europe. You can take this test as many times as you like.  My Online Advisor offers you language-related and pedagoglical assistance in English.  Tell Me More even provides an End of Training Certificate.  One feature that I feel I just have to mention is the Mobile Learning feature.  Outside of Tell Me More you can load audio lessons onto your MP3 player, Pocket PC or burn it to a CD and take it on the road. This is a great feature for continual learning. To immerse yourself in the language as much as possible! All of my children have MP3 players so this worked wonderfully for our family! This really is a total package and if the immersion technique fits for you then this is the program that you should try.  Where else in one program can you learn reading and writing, listening and speaking, grammar, culture, and vocabulary.  You can even create your own workbooks for your child! The Tell Me More Homeschool French 5 Levels is on sale right now for $309.  I am sure you are going WOW $309 that's a lot.  If you break it down thinking about how many children you have and the fact that it's FOUR years of lessons then the cost becomes very reasonable.  This is a top quality program for learning language.  This would be my first choice in a complete language program to recommend to any homeschooling family or family whose children were learning a foreign language in school. If you have never tried the immersion technique of learning a language then check out their free trial and rolling demos here.  Who can resist a try before you buy! -

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