Latin American children vs children in Latin America: What I learned in Start-up Chile

I knew that making educational software for Latino children in the U.S. and for children in Chile would need to be different. I just didn’t how or how much until I spent the last year working with schools here.

How Spanish speakers used our bilingual software

In the U.S. , Spanish-speaking children are extremely motivated to learn English. Their teachers speak English and may not speak Spanish at all. Most of their classmates speak English. The music, movies, TV shows, billboards — basically, everything around them is in English, which makes it easier to learn and also makes them a lot more driven to learn.

When U.S. Latino children played games like AzTech: The Story Begins, they listened to the videos or read the text in English first and tried to understand it. If they couldn’t answer the math or history questions, then they clicked the button to switch to Spanish.

How Chilean children are different

Think back to when you were in school. How motivated were you to learn French, Spanish, German or whatever it was the school and your parents forced you to take? If you were like most students, not very motivated at all. Turns out, Chilean students are just like that because they are not learning English as a second language but, rather, English as a foreign language.