The Method

Little Pim is the brainchild of Julia Pimsleur Levine, an award winning documentary filmmaker who, as the mother of two, wanted to create a top quality, fun language-teaching DVDs for babies and young children. Julia was inspired by her own bilingual childhood: she is the daughter of Dr. Paul Pimsleur, who pioneered the international best-selling foreign language audio teaching method. In determining how best to approach creating effective materials for kids, she immersed herself in the latest scientific research regarding language acquisition and brain development, worked with leading neuroscientist Dr. April Benasich, and drew from her own experience as a language teacher, filmmaker and mother. Read on to learn about the method she created.

The Little Pim series uses the Entertainment Immersion Method™, which engages a child’s natural love of play, watching real kids and learning through repetition. Children get very attached to the lovable cartoon panda bear, Little Pim, who is the series “teacher.” He invites young viewers to join him in his playful antics as they learn the language along with real children enjoying everyday activities, such as playing, eating, waking and napping.

The entire DVD is spoken by native speakers, and words are presented and repeated at regular intervals. Each Little Pim DVD focuses on sixty words and phrases typically acquired in a toddler’s primary language, providing the essential building blocks for language acquisition.

Little Pim DVDs are designed and paced for developing minds. Young children respond enthusiastically to Little Pim’s format, a combination of animation and live action. Babies respond to black and white, therefore the panda captures the attention of even the youngest viewers. Each 35-minute DVD is segmented into seven 5-minute episodes to accommodate a young child’s attention span and encourage pausing for parent interaction. Simple sentences are broken down into easy-to-understand parts, and reinforced through repetition.

We encourage you to watch Little Pim with your little one and repeat the words together – it’s fun for kids and adults! The more you interact with the language, the easier the lessons become and the more your child will learn. You do not need to know the language your child is learning to watch with them; we have provided optional English subtitles (select SUBTITLES in the start up menu) so you can easily follow along.