TalkBox.Mom Review: Foreign Language Learning for the Whole Homeschool Family

* I was provided with a TalkBox.Mom box (but paid for my own phrase book) in order to write this review. All opinions in this review are my own.

Are you a homeschooling family looking to learn a language together—in a way that doesn’t feel like some awkward classroom activity?

“Ou est le Metro?” Uhhh….why am I asking my three-year-old where to find the subway?

If that sounds like your experience with studying foreign languages at home, you’re in luck! TalkBox.Mom is a new language learning curriculum designed by a homeschooling mom that helps you learn a language with your kids—naturally. I’ve spent months testing it with my own kids (who are learning Brazilian Portuguese as their third language) and I’m now ready to share my thoughts, as a mom and language educator.

Before reading this review of TalkBox.Mom, you might first like to check out how I review foreign language curricula. While the TalkBox.Mom design is a bit different from other language curricula available—mostly in its emphasis on speaking and listening—I’ve been careful to evaluate it not just for usability, but also its effectiveness as a teaching tool.

What is TalkBox.Mom?

TalkBox.Mom is a subscription box that allows families to learn a foreign language by encouraging families to start speaking it from the start! You can sign up for boxes to come on a monthly, bi-monthly, or customized schedule, according to your family’s needs, and you can also purchase a phrase book for quick reference. 

Each box focuses on a particular theme and teaches phrases and vocabulary that you would naturally use at home, with your own kids. In this way, they are uniquely relevant to homeschooling families—everything that you learn can immediately be put into practice with your kids. The themes include: food, self-care, actions, clothing, and chores—all things you can talk about at home!

How does TalkBox.Mom work?

TalkBox.Mom teaches languages primarily through the audio-lingual method, which has been shown to be very effective for adult learners. Since the goal of the curriculum is to teach mom first, and then have her teach her children, I think that this is a good approach. Of course, this would be appropriate for high school-aged children to use on their own as well.

It doesn’t include much in the way of reading or writing practice, but that’s not the goal of the program. TalkBox.Mom is designed to get families speaking and listening—other skills can be added on later. In this way, it is unique in the homeschool community, where many foreign language curricula are focused on reading and writing.

One thing that I really like is that Adelaide—the founder of Talkbox Mom—is very upfront about the time commitment that it takes to learn a foreign language. She recommends 15-60 minutes of practice per day with the program, which is also what research tells us is the right amount of time. As she says, “It’s not about intensity, it’s about consistency.” I think that’s exactly right!

What does it look like in practice? 

Here’s where I’ll share our family’s experience using TalkBox.Mom, which we tried out for a few months before I felt ready to write this review. As many of you know, we are educating our kids to be bilingual in Spanish and English, but I would also like them to have basic conversational skills in Portuguese. Over the years, I’ve worked hard to gather Brazilian Portuguese resources for homeschooling, but as it’s a less-studied language, our curriculum has been pretty hodge-podge—I just use whatever I can find and afford. For my own reasons, I was dying to have some more structure for our Portuguese study, so I was particularly excited to test out TalkBox.Mom as a “spine” for our Portuguese practice. 

Each TalkBox.Mom box that you receive will include:

• Engaging, professionally illustrated vocabulary posters to hang in your house;

• Vocabulary and phrase cards to label things in the house;

• Weekly challenge assignments to help stay on track; and

• Accountability tools.

TalkBox.Mom recommends that you hang your posters and phrase cards in the places in the house where you are most likely to practice the phrases you’re currently studying—so, food vocabulary posters would go next to the fridge, for example, or personal care phrases next to the bathroom mirror. I think that’s a great idea! You want to make it easy for yourself to practice your new language, and thinking strategically about where you use these materials is one way to do that.

I also downloaded TalkBox.Mom audio app, which provides audio of native speakers saying the phrases that you’re learning with your kids. This is huge! If you are self-conscious about your pronunciation or struggle to “hear” the sounds of other languages, this will be a great tool for you. It is really helpful to me, since I have always struggled with Portuguese pronunciation—those nasal sounds just don’t come easy to this English speaker! I notice also that because my kids are listening to a native speaker say the phrases, they haven’t picked up on my pronunciation errors. That’s a big win for me.

TalkBox.Mom is designed to be used throughout your day, so that, as you add on new words and phrases, you are gradually creating an immersion environment in your home. For us, however, since we’re homeschooling multiple languages, I use Talkbox mostly during our Morning Time. I make it “real” by having the kids act out the scenes where we would normally be using these phrases—our play kitchen gets a lot of action this way!

With this program, you will get out of it what you are willing to put in. Yes, you can simply listen to and repeat the phrases with your kids—and that’s okay, if your end goal is simply to expose them to a new language. Not every family has fluency as their goal. If, however, you want your kids spontaneously using the language, you need to stick to those practice goals of 15-60 minutes/day. Luckily, Talkbox has lots of extra tools to keep you motivated and accountable. First, the boxes themselves are organized around “challenges,” with trackers provided. In addition, they have an exclusive Facebook group for subscribers, with daily challenges, check-ins and motivational posts. If you need accountability, you’ll be pleased to know that this program has those systems already built into it.

Now, for the million dollar question (that I know you are asking): Will TalkBox.Mom make my child fluent in another language? I think that the answer is no—but no one language curriculum can do that. Learning a foreign language is like learning a musical instrument: it’s a process that takes time and consistently challenging practice. So, a better question would be: Will TalkBox.Mom give my family strong conversation skills in another language? The answer to that is yes. If you follow the program, your family should be able to communicate at a basic conversational level. You’ll need additional practice to be able to read in your target language, or to have high-level abstract conversations (think philosophy or law), but the basic skills will be there—and you can build off of them later.

Who will get the most out of TalkBox.Mom?

TalkBox.Mom is a versatile curriculum that can work for families in many different situations. I think it can be a particularly strong fit if you for one (or more) of the following: 

• You have young children and want to start learning a foreign language with them. Young children do best when they learn new languages in a natural way—without worksheets, endless flashcards, and tedious translation exercises. TalkBox.Mom is perfectly designed for the family who wants to start language study with young kids, since they’ll be able to jump right in. Aside from using the vocabulary in everyday situations, I get our kids to do some extra practice by using our TalkBox.Mom materials for these multi-sensory games.

• You have children spanning multiple age groups and want to learn a language together. In my opinion, this is the most family-friendly curriculum on the market today. It’s a piece of cake to learn together as a whole family. If you have high schoolers, you can have them use another curriculum alongside TalkBox.Mom to round out their reading and writing practice—one designed for self-study, like Breaking the Barrier, would be a great option.

• You have a homeschooled child whose normal curriculum doesn’t include much speaking or listening practice. TalkBox.Mom can help them become more comfortable with the language and get extra practice according to their needs.

• You are motivated to learn a foreign language yourself.  While mature high school students can use TalkBox.Mom on their own, the program won’t work for younger children if you’re not setting an example by practicing daily with the language and using it daily around the house.

• You are studying a less common language and need a homeschool-friendly curriculum to serve as your “spine.” TalkBox.Mom offers their boxes in languages that are less frequently studied by homeschoolers (due to lack of curriculum), including Chinese, Hebrew, Italian, German, Portuguese, Korean, Japanese, and Russian.

• You’re planning a trip and want to know the basics of the country you’ll be visiting. Subscribe to TalkBox.Mom and you’ll be ready for your next worldschooling trip!

• And/or you are a bilingual parent who wants to introduce or reinforce the minority language in your home. I think that TalkBox.Mom is a great way to introduce your heritage language to your children—especially if you’ve waited a few years before exposing them to it. Instead of just jumping into speaking a new language with them (which would be overwhelming for children beyond infancy), follow the TalkBox.Mom program to gradually increase their level of comfort with your native tongue.

Who should look for another curriculum?

As much as I like TalkBox.Mom, I want to be honest that this curriculum won’t be a perfect fit for every family —no curriculum ever is! Here are some families who should consider other options:

• Families who cannot devote time to daily practice. If you like to “block schedule” your language study to 1-2 sessions a week, this is not for you. It will be impossible to retain what you’re learning through TalkBox.Mom without consistent daily practice.  

• Families who just want to check a box for language learning. TalkBox.Mom actually has a TON of amazing accountability tools included in its program—however, it’s not something that you can just “get through” each day (like handwriting worksheets, for example). Now, for those of you who need accountability (I do! I totally do!), TalkBox.Mom has it.

• Families who prefer screen-based learning. This is not a component of the TalkBox.Mom program (which I personally think is a major plus, but I understand not all families feel the same way).

• Families whose children are all learning different languages. TalkBox.Mom is designed to provide speaking practice with other family members, so it won’t work if everyone wants to do his/her own thing.

• Families who want their child to become proficient in reading and writing in another language. TalkBox.Mom can certainly help with this, but it isn’t the curriculum’s focus—you’ll need to pair it with something else.

• Families with a very minimal budget. TalkBox.Mom offers various flexible plans to help families on a budget, which allow you to space out your boxes—you don’t have to get a box every month! However, if you are looking to spend very little money (say, less than $100/year), this is not the best option for you. While you could purchase the phrasebook and use that in daily life, I personally think that the phrasebook is more effective when paired with the boxes. It would just be a TON of work to look up the key phrases and study them without all of the structure and accountability (and audio tools!) that the boxes offer.

If you find yourself in one of these categories, don’t worry—I have other resources to help you. Check out my Spanish Homeschool Curriculum Round-Up or French Homeschool Curriculum Round-Up to find options that might fit your needs better.

Can I get a discount as a Language Learning At Home reader?

Because our family has had such a positive experience with TalkBox.Mom and because I believe that this curriculum serves an important need in the homeschool community, I am an affiliate with TalkBox.Mom. That means that I make a small commission for everyone who chooses to purchase the curriculum through my link—which goes right back into paying for this blog’s hosting.

So, if you’re interested, please consider using my code to purchase. TalkBox.Mom is offering you $20 off your first box with the code languagelearning20 or $5 off of the phrase book with the code languagelearning5.

And let me know what you think once you’ve used it. I think you’ll be very pleased.

Is there anything more that you would like to know about TalkBox.Mom? Leave me a comment here!