Lingo Dingo and the Story Powered Learning Method

Lingo Dingo

When we first read ‘The Fabulous Lost & Found and the Little Dutch Mouse’ my children and I instantly fell in love with it. It was the first book in the Story Powered Learning Method and luckily the series now continues with two new entries.

‘Lingo Dingo and the Dutch Chef’ & ‘Lingo Dingo and the Dutch Astronaut’.

In both stories we meet a young Dingo called Lingo who loves being helpful. As the opening of the story tells us, she does what she can to help anyone, anytime, anyhow. Unfortunately things are not always that straight forward. Sometimes the animals that Lingo meets speak a different language. It can be very difficult to help someone if you don’t understand what it is they need. However, that does not stop Lingo from trying her best.

Lingo dingo and the Dutch Chef

Just like in the previous book the Lingo Dingo stories blend language learning with storytelling to make it a natural part of the story. It’s entertaining for children while also cultivating an interest in learning a second language. As a bonus it also teaches empathy towards people who we might not be able to understand at first.

Even as an adult I find these stories very relatable. Okay, I’ve never had to help a monkey who is a famous Dutch chef bake a cake or aid a turtle who is a Dutch astronaut repair a space station. However, much like Lingo Dingo in the book, I have had to use trial and error to navigate many Dutch conversations. That part is very relatable indeed.

Lingo Dingo and the Dutch Astronaut

That is the charm of the story powered learning method. It puts learning a language (in this case Dutch) into a story that is relatable even within the fantastical context of the situation.

If you have young children and would like to get them interested in learning Dutch (or you just want to read them something funny and fun) I can recommend the Lingo Dingo series.

My children and I are looking forward to what adventures Lingo Dingo goes on next.

You can buy the Lingo Dingo books from these locations:

The first book ‘The Fabulous Lost & Found and the Little Dutch Mouse’ is now also available in Dutch (with the mouse being English):

The books are written by Mark Pallis, who was part of the Emmy winning writing team for Peter Rabbit, and illustrated by Peter Baynton, who animated the TV version of The Tiger who Came to Tea.

There are also different versions of the books available that teach different languages. For more information check out:

www.markpallis.com/lingo-dingo

Stuart

Stuart is an accident prone Englishman who has been living in the Netherlands since 2001. Even his move to the country was an unintentional accident, the result of replying to a cryptic job advertisement he found one day in a local British magazine. Since then he has learned to love the Dutch (so much so that he married one of them) and now calls the country home. He started the blog Invading Holland in 2006 as a place to share his strange stories of language misunderstandings, cultural confusions and his own accident prone nature.

1 Response

  1. vallypee says:

    Lovely stories, Stu! I could have done with these when I first came here :)

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