It's been years now I was searching for a method to teach my kids German. My problem here is/was that they do have English lessons at school, but no German lessons. I myself taught German in a high school, but it was German as a foreign language, so the way you teach is very different.

Many parents all over the world are in a similar position: they want to teach their children their mother language, but don't really know how to do this. The result is/was "we all do in some way", but there's not really a plan. There is great software to help us, but what is/was missing: a book ... Now when we combine the book with computer lessons: then things become really powerful, because the book gives us the basis, the guidelines on how to approach things and the computer today, the mobile phone in a couple of years, is a very useful tool.

The other day I came across a Wikibook called "Das Schreiblernbuch" (the book to learn how to write). Dr. Brigitta Welzel really created a wonderful instrument for home teaching German as a mother language and released it under CC-BY-SA 3.0 license. The concept can be transferred to any language and follows a learning by doing principle. Therefore it is not necessary that the parents first become grammar specialists.

When I saw the various lessons that are for example about associating pictures to words, writing down names of objects etc. I saw a combination of "book + computer" in front of me. Many children prefer the computer to paper, but us parents prefer paper: so the best thing would be to combine both ways and all will be happy.

Yesterday evening I then also talked with Outi about this: she would like to have similar material for Joola and will probably start to create it.

Now let's have a look at the winning combination:

• Klettres, a software Anne-Marie Mahfouf wrote to teach her kids the lettres of the alphabet and how to type them.
• Parley, a software originally aimed for vocabulary learning where many exercises can be transferred to.
• KHangMan, a classical Hangman game where one can repeat the vocabulary by guessing letters.
• Kanagram, where you have to put the letters in the right sequence.
• And something that does not exist by now, but which I would love to see: Memory.
• "The book to learn how to write" as paper basis for the above.

The first step for any language is the alphabet and special sounds and syllabes. This is needed for the book and also for the computer games. By doing one work you can get two results: the book structure and the first approach for your children to learn how to type on the computer.

Write down the alphabet including special letters and letter combinations (syllabes). Then record these. For some languages it is already there, just have a look at Klettres.

Then, once you have this, you build the structure for the "modules" and we can start to create a module. Well yes, there's work involved, but remember: you do it for your children. Maybe there's the possibility to create groups per language.

Like always: the first ones to test will be my children :-) Let's see how their reaction is to see the first unit on paper and with Parley.