Shoonya Farm Animals:Languages

— Prof. Dorothy M. Chun, (Second language acquisition,computer-mediated communication for language learning, and learning and teaching with digital media)

Children, across the world and of all ages, love animals! They view animals as their friends, enjoy them as pets, and delight in dressing them up as they do themselves. Shoonya Farm Animals offers an interactive experience for children to experience all of the above while learning the names of fourteen farm animals in nine different languages: English, Spanish, German, Arabic, Hindi, Marathi, Punjabi, Telugu, and Gujarati.

Although this app is designed for children of different age ranges, the age groups are merely suggestions. All children are unique, so allow your child to be the guide.

Watch Mode : This is an auto-play mode allowing for a full language immersion experience.

From the home screen:
- Tap on the scroll bar to select a language
- Tap the top windows to select age
- Tap on an animal from the carousel to play

Motive: To entertain and stimulate children’s brains with images of delightful animated animal characters, representative of cultures around the world, while introducing the name of each animal. Research shows that a human brain is hardwired to learn as many as three languages by the age of six. This full immersion technique takes advantage of this special window by exposing children to multiple foreign languages, or a single target language.

Play Mode: This is an interactive play mode that allows children to explore and learn animal names in multiple languages.

- Use the scroll bar to select language
- Use the forward and back arrows to select animals
- Tap the animal icon in the upper right corner to view an animation of the animal dressed in culture-specific attire, accompanied by world music

Motive: To engage children with interactive play. This is the age range during which most children are learning to relate animal names and sounds to actual animals. This mode offers an opportunity to learn by interacting with the content. Children can learn the names of the animals in a target language, become exposed to various foreign languages or simply enjoy the fun animations, ethnic apparel, and world music.

Create Mode: This is an interactive play mode that introduces children to full sentences and vocabulary words in multiple languages.

- Use the scroll bar to select language
- Use the forward and back arrows to select animals
- Tap the box to the left of the screen to select clothing, accessories, hats and shoes
- Tap the box to the right to select a background landscape
- Tap the animal icon in the upper right corner to view an animation of the animal dressed in culture-specific attire, accompanied by world music

Motive: To encourage children to learn languages and gain familiarity with apparel, accessories, and music from cultures other than their own. Each animal name is introduced in a full sentence, along with vocabulary words describing outfits and landscapes. Designed to spark imagination as children dress up the animals with clothing, textiles, and designs sourced from around the world. Created and tested in classrooms to enhance fine motor skills by expanding and rotating the clothing and accessories.

ABOUT SHOONYA:
At Shoonya, our mission is to create a love for cultural diversity and world languages among young children. We believe that the world is getting flatter, and in order to raise our children as the next generation of global citizens, they need global exposure. We foster this by creating content that is diverse, and enrich children's global perspective by engaging with fun, interactive content in multiple language.