Hello Everyone,

So, I was talking to a friend of mine a couple weeks ago about Esperanto, and she was very curious about it. She is married, and has four children that she home schools, and she is a part of a home schooling group in our area. She ended up telling her group about Esperanto, and since she didn't know much about it, she couldn't really answer many of their questions. She put together a night where all the mothers, and fathers of the children met up at her house, and I went over there to answer their questions. When I told them that if they themselves, and their children learn Esperanto, their children will be able to learn another language a little bit easier. Most of these families want to teach their children Spanish, so I told them that learning Esperanto would help them learn Spanish faster. Well, I ended up getting roped in to teaching their children Esperanto since they know nothing about the language. I made a deal that I would teach their children Esperanto, but the parents have to learn it too, because any future children they may have, or future families joining their group will need to learn Esperanto too, and I don't want to teach Esperanto forever to these children. The parents need to learn, so when they have more children, they can teach them Esperanto instead of relying on me.

Most of these families are very poor, and I think three families out of this group don't even have internet access. So, teaching their children is going to be difficult. I have somewhat of a plan, but since I'm broke, and most of these families are eating rice, and beans, because they can't afford much food, I told them I'd try my best to figure something out that won't cost them any money.

That's why I'm here.. I don't like asking for handouts, but I was curious if anyone has any children's books, magazines, or really anything that can help me teach these kids Esperanto? I plan on printing out some materials, but I wanted to give some books, and magazines to the children to take home to have something to study, and eventually read other than the learning material. I plan on using lernu to help me out, but these kids need to be able to take some books, or magazines home, or they will most likely have a hard time learning. Since I have a life, I will only be able to meet up with these children twice a week, and I don't want my hard work going down the drain.

I would be so thankful to anyone who can help me out. Anything you can spare would be very much appreciated by me, and the children who want to learn Esperanto.

I feel like I have to do something, because these kids are excited to learn Esperanto. I don't want to let them down. I'm hoping I don't fail them, and they will learn Esperanto without too many complications.

Thank you for your time, and if you are willing to help me out, please send me a private message.

Amike,
Stefanja

Saluton Stefanja,

First, good on you for acting so charitably toward those children and their parents.

On some other points. It would be helpful to know what age ranges are involved here. You teach 6 year old children language concepts far differently than you teach 14 year olds. If you mentioned the age range in your post, it escaped my notice.

That said, the first thing I would suggest is to have a look around the Children and Youth section of Esperanto-USA.

Beyond that here is a brain-dump of content that might prove useful to you in several ways.

There are a large number of free Esperanto texts that you can choose from at the Esperanto section of Project Gutenberg. These texts are all Public Domain because their copyright expired. This means that, almost uniformly, these texts date from 1922 and previous. Public domain texts have the benefit that you can do whatever you want with them, including republish them in whole or in part.

There are several audio books available at LibriVox, in Esperanto.

There are some short podcasts in Esperanto that might prove useful. I myself listen to Radio Verda from time to time.

For students anywhere near their teens I would strongly recommend the text Teach Yourself Esperanto, Third Edition. Now, sadly, out of print. There are, however, *cough* *cough* PDF copies *cough* available online; or, so I have been told. I was able to secure a copy though Amazon for not much money, $15 would be in the correct range.

There are several Mediawiki Projects, such as Wikipedia, available in Esperanto http://eo.wikipedia.org/. That might give you articles that are good for lesson content. Beyond that Wikibooks, Wikisource, and Wikiversity are all available in Esperanto. Though, I will say, beyond Wikipedia and Wikisource the other projects are sparse.

There is a Wikibook dedicated to Esperanto: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Esperanto

There is also a grammar Wikibook being written: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Esperanto:_A_Complete...

There is also a Wiki dictionary in Esperanto: http://eo.wiktionary.org/

As for the kids without Internet access, I might suggest a single board computer: either Raspberry Pi ($35) or an MK802, also about the same. The former runs Linux, the latter Android.

If the children are really young, consider printing out common classroom posters, such as common colors, in Esperanto.

I'm running up against my character limit for this post. I hope you can use at least some of this information.

Amike,

Jeff

Don't forget the free PDF textbook Libera Esperanto-Libro, which has a much longer version of Ana Pana than lernu has (20-some lessons rather than 8).

It depends a lot on the age range though, as others already mentioned.

I taught Esperanto to a group of home schoolers for a short time. We used Pasporto al la Tuta Mondo, which I had a DVD copy of. They found it difficult. Your group may enjoy Mazi en Gondolando (it's available on YouTube) which is a cartoon that teaches Esperanto.

I used to have a couple of children's books but I already gave them away years ago - I suspect that two of them were lost to the home schooling group I taught, though when I inquired, none of them remembered having any of my books!

There are a couple of textbooks aimed specifically at children. I used Tendaraj Tagoj, which is aimed at children, in teaching university students once or twice. I thought the illustrations were pretty cute. There are some other textbooks aimed at even younger children, "Okulo" is one of them.

Also, start an account at Edukado.net. They have tons and tons of free learning materials that you can download and use.

Also, start an account at Edukado.net. They have tons and tons of free learning materials that you can download and use.

Yes, this is a fantastic resource for teachers at all levels. Try this link. As you will see one can search the database of learning materials by different criteria. A1 is the lowest level.