Cómo se dice 'fun' en Español? After playing a few of these engaging, vocabulary-centered games, your young language learners will be able to tell you! This is sure to become a favorite app in any Spanish class.
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App Overview
Learn Spanish - MindSnacks is made up of nine engaging games that test spelling, image recognition, recall, error recognition, vocabulary mastery, grammar, categorization, and more. When you first start out, only two games are unlocked. As you progress through the game, you level up and unlock more games. The final game opens when you reach level 36, so there is plenty of game play! Side quests and achievements spice up the games and provide additional motivation for you to continue playing.
How to Get Started:
- Create account or log in
- Indicate your Spanish level
- Nonexistent
- Jumbled up words without any structure
- Halting sentences with OK grammar
- Fast & confident
- Follow the tutorial that briefly explains the buttons on the app
- Tap each word in the provided list to hear it read aloud
- Begin your first lesson with a game of Swell, one of two unlocked games
Access to Lessons:
- The app comes with one free lesson
- If you master all of the words in the lesson, you have to upgrade to learn new words
- A Spanish Pass costs $4.99; the pass includes 50 lessons that cover grammar, reading, and conversations skills
- Lessons in the Spanish Pass include 1000+ words and a set of extra quests to keep you engaged and motivated
- For $19.99 you can buy all lessons for all eight subjects: Portuguese, French, German, Japanese, Spanish, Italian, Mandarin, SAT (400 lessons total)
Viewing and Selecting Lessons:
- Tap the book in the top right corner or drag the main page to the left to view lessons
- Words are organized into two columns: Current and Mastered; tap any word to hear it read out loud
- The program will automatically go through the list of lessons; if you want to learn something specific, open up the menu and select a topic
- Topics range from basic numbers and nouns to expressions and irregular verbs
- The app personalizes your experience by repeating tough words and repeating mastered words during current lessons
- Practice your mastered words by tapping on the Mastered tab
Game Features:
- Catchy music; different for each game
- Cute graphics and animations
- Accurate pronunciation of each word by a native speaker
- Progress tracking for each word
- Scorecard for each game after finishing
- Games can be paused, restarted, or randomized
On Your Profile, Track:
- Mastered words
- Active days
- Hot streaks
- Lessons finished
- Image recognition
- Spelling
- Rapid recall
- Error recognition
Instructional Ideas
Learn Spanish - MindSnacks is designed for a single user. Because of this, it would work best as an individual activity. Since you can choose specific lessons, you could assign lessons of your choice for class members to work on.
Multiple users can use the same device, they just have to sign on. If you have a limited number of tablets available, set up stations and have class members log into their accounts when they arrive at the stations.
Classroom Considerations
While engaging and motivating, Learn Spanish - MindSnacks cannot teach your class everything about Spanish. Since the focus is on vocabulary, the app would be useful as a supplementary, rather than a primary resource. Students will still need instruction on gender, conjugation, and sentence structure. Additionally, users are not prompted to speak or write while playing the games. Conversation and composition will need to be taught and practiced separately.
While most of the vocabulary words are represented by charming illustrations, this is not the case for all of the words. Some of the words in the latest lessons are paired with photographs instead. The photographs are of varying quality, so you might take a look at them before moving on to later units.
The developer offers bulk licenses to schools for half the price of a normal license. Check out their website for more information.
Pros
- Not a boring moment
- Tracks progress
- Scaffolded content and reteaching built in
Cons
- Single user interface
- No opportunity for speaking or composing; a supplementary material