Brazilian kids learn English by gently correcting celebrities’ grammar on Twitter
By Johny Ho on Friday, July 12, 2013
Red Ballon is a Brazilian language school focusing on English, with several units in the country. The firm created an experiment with their 8 to 13-year-old kids by allowing them to correct celebrities’ grammar via Twitter.
Teachers worry that children still in the process of learning the proper use of formal English ends up getting confused when celebrities they follow use the the language colloquially and with improper spelling and grammar. This experiment allowed children to learn English by reviewing what was written by these celebrities, interact with them and then correct them by replying via the school’s official Twitter handle (@RedBalloon)
This experiment reinforces the brand of the school and has created a lot of awareness of what they’ve been doing.
A video about the motivations, with example of some of the celebrities that were contacted can be viewed below.
Some of the resulting tweet exchanges from this experiment have already achieved media coverage locally and internationally, including Buzzfeed, Terra, News.Com.Au, Today in LA.