I interviewed Ilango Sankaralingam, president of Smart Play about the bilingual products that his company makes to engage children in the language-learning process. I checked out their website extensively and was very impressed with their educational toys and the fact that they really are an affordable addition to a bilingual parent’s tool set.
Ilango volunteered to give away two of their Spanish-language products, pictured here: Math-o-matic and Easy Tranlator. See below for giveaway details!
THE INTERVIEW
Question: What was your inspiration for starting the business?
Ilango’s Answer: I worked in the baby products industry for over 20 years and acquired a significant amount of knowledge of manufacturing, supply chain and the retail industry. I was brought up in a trilingual environment and when I noticed that my kids did not have the same opportunity, I decided to take the plunge and start Smart Play. I felt that bilingual learning needs to become an integral part of our society and I wanted to make it easier for parents and children to achieve this goal. I am glad that I am able to combine my passion with my experience and create a new line of Ingenio bilingual educational toys.
Question: Who is the audience for your products and how do you see them being used by children and parents?
A: We have designed all products to equally emphasize the two languages – English and Spanish. The line works great for parents who want their Spanish speaking child to learn English and also their English speaking child to learn Spanish. By presenting the two languages at the same time, it allows a child who is fluent in one language to easily pick up the second language as they can quickly refer to their native language at any time.
Question: Will you be adding products in additional languages?
A: Yes. We will be expanding our line to include bilingual toys in French/English, Hindi/English as well as Mandarin/English in 2011. We hope to expand to other languages also in the future.
Question: What are your long-term goals?
A: We want to be THE bilingual learning company and want to offer different types of learning opportunities for children. Whether it is software, toys or media, we want to provide the tools needed for an early start in bilingual learning.
Question: What is your best piece of advice for parents hoping to raise their children bilingually?
A: Start early and be consistent in your approach. Children have the innate ability to absorb languages and the earlier the better. There are a lot of new resources (DVD’s, Flash cards, toys, etc) available in the marketplace and this will help reinforce bilingual learning at home. When language is introduced in the context of fun, your child will not even know that he or she is learning a new language.
THE GIVEAWAY
To enter this giveaway for one of the two educational toys shown above, you need to do just one of the following:
- Visit the SmartPlay site and post a comment below telling which of their products you like best,
– Follow me on Twitter and tweet about this giveaway; be sure to include a link to this post and mention me at @bilingualtips so I see your tweet, or
– Blog about this giveaway and be sure to include a link to this post. Copy your post’s link into a comment below.
(You will receive one entry per action above for this giveaway, for a maximum of three entries –but it takes just one to enter!)
Note that there will be two winners: one for each of the two SmartPlay products shown above.
This giveaway ends Sunday, December 5th, at midnight US Eastern time. Note that you must have a US mailing address to enter.
Winner selected at random. No substitutions and our decision regarding winners is final.
Filed under: Games, Immersion, Interviews, Literacy, Resources, Spanish
