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Prep Ventures Launches New Locally Relevant Mobile App, Prep Junior, To Promote Bilingualism In Young Learners In Singapore

By PR Newswire on 08/09/2021

Prep Ventures Launches New Locally Relevant Mobile App, Prep Junior, To Promote Bilingualism In Young Learners In Singapore

SINGAPORE, Sept. 8, 2021 /PRNewswire/ —

Prep Ventures today announced the launch of Prep Junior, a free-to-download story-based Chinese learning app to help promote Chinese language learning and bilingualism. Prep Junior aims to nurture curiosity and confidence in speaking Mandarin for young learners with stories set in Singapore, and to infuse digital learning in the classroom and at home. Prep Junior is supported by the Lee Kuan Yew Fund for Bilingualism, Pixel – Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) and Tsinghua X-lab, Tsinghua University’s education platform for innovation and entrepreneurship.

Prep Junior features more than 150 common Chinese vocabulary terms in interactive stories and games. Packed with locally-inspired day-to-day phrases, animated illustrations of Singapore such as the zoo, hawker centre, supermarket and Jewel Changi Airport, a pet learning companion and music, the app aims to contextualise learning, inspire curiosity and promote bilingualism.

A new adventure awaits young learners as they raise a virtual pet by completing animated stories and quizzes, who mimics their growth as they improve their ability to listen, speak and read Chinese.
Features of the new game-based app and its learning experience:

• Explore: Learn about food, sights, occupations and culture
Diverse learning: The language learning journey is unique to every child. To cater for different styles, Prep Junior contains multiple tasks for Visual, Auditory and Kinaesthetic learning
Quizzes: Fun quizzes to check learning progress
Journey together in parent-mode: Offers English translation and Hanyu pinyin to help non-Mandarin speaking parents to guide their child at home
Raise a pet: Earn dragonballs by completing activities to feed Long Long and keep it happy

Ng Jia Ying, Co-Founder of Prep Junior, said: “The Prep Junior team consists of passionate educators, parents and professionals who share the vision of increasing access to fun, localised content, featuring everyday scenes and vocabulary to help children learn Chinese even in non-Mandarin speaking environments at home, and the importance of nurturing bilingualism at home. This is because through our work experience, and China emerging, we saw the need to learn the language well, but such content often could not be found in local stores and online. Prep Junior was created following extensive rounds of development and testing through playtests, engagement with early childhood and language experts and pre-school teachers. As we also believe education should be accessible, the app is free to download on all mobile devices.”

About Prep Junior

Prep Junior is an interactive story-based Chinese learning app for young learners. Prep Junior is supported by the Lee Kuan Yew Fund for Bilingualism, Pixel – Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) and Tsinghua X-lab.

Founded by a group of passionate educators, young working professionals and parents, Prep Junior brings children on a learning adventure around Singapore, with original illustrations of familiar sights and sounds of the island city to ignite the joy in learning Chinese and promote bilingualism.

Prep Junior is available free-to-download now on Apple App Store and Google Play at this link https://bit.ly/36uXbQo .