At first Joseph was unsure, during the first episode in particular I was having difficulties trying to keep him focused. Maybe it felt a little bit too much like 'school' I'm not sure, but thankfully by the third episode he was much more into it and he reminded me daily when it was time to 'do Spanish'. I did wonder whether he would correct the words that he knew were different - numbers, colours, fruit etc. but he seemed to accept that this was a new and different language.
Speekee TV consists of 10 episodes of immersion-based language tuition. Led by a very cute puppet Speekee and a rather easy on the eye side-kick Jim, each episode focuses on a social scene; the market, the beach, the park etc. using Spanish children and with subtitles in both English and Spanish. Throughout each episode particular attention is made to informal greetings; 'hola', 'adiós', '¿cómo te llamas?' with pauses for your child to repeat phrases or answer questions—"¿y tu?". Each new episode introduces new verbs, nouns and adjectives using extremely catchy songs and visual clues. Aiding Speekee and Jim along are two sock puppets called Lupi and Dino, these talk in very odd voices which Joseph loved and I found rather grating, but they do keep saying "te quiero" (I love you) to each other which we both took as an opportunity for a quick cuddle and smooch. There's a worksheet for each episode with hints and tips for parents in how to get the most out of each exercise.
Speekee TV is fun and very colourful (orange features heavily), emphasis on learning is with repetition and catchy songs which children will love. I definitely feel that Joseph has a slightly sharper ear now towards both Spanish and Catalan after completing the course and he's learnt lots of new words along the way.
The downsides for me were that sometimes the picture quality wasn't always that good and was occasionally a bit blurred and would pixulate, although that could just be my laptop. I also wondered if the episodes aren't just that little bit too long (on average about 18 minutes), especially for really young children—Speekee TV is aimed at children aged from 2-10. However, if Jim ever decides to make a Spanish to English version I shall be snapping it up as it will help immensely in my tutoring of local children to speak English, it's a fantastic learning tool.
The real test though was Joseph's reaction to it, whilst writing this review I replayed the first episode just to make sure I hadn't missed anything, on hearing the start up music he immediately came scuttling downstairs (having switch off Donkey Kong on the Wii no less) and demanded to watch it again. He absolutely loved it. You can't ask for better than that!
Note - whilst no money was paid to me for reviewing this product I did receive temporary free access to the course.
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