Fun and laughter with a board game
Like a lot of things, KLOO was born of frustration! It was was designed by me to help my children learn a language.
Married to an Italian and with holidays planned to the continent every year, I wanted my two daughters to speak other languages. I bought a range of products and activities: CDs, DVDs, software, books, audio devices and lessons and was perplexed at how slow they were learning. Two things were crystal clear: my children did not enjoy learning a language – it simply wasn’t fun; and, secondly, the materials didn’t seem to be effective anyway. Having been involved in designing games for many years, I started to wonder if you could create a game that replicated the way we learned our first language so it was more natural, easier and fun.
An early prototype of KLOO cards
Playing with scraps of paper around the dining room table, I designed and refined the KLOO® concept. The reaction of my daughters to the game surprised me. Within minutes they were shouting out foreign sentences, laughing and completely absorbed in the game, while tests showed they were learning more in a single game of KLOO® than in a month of using other methods. It just started off as a bit of fun with no commercial intentions. What I had not anticipated was how effective the game would be at building vocabulary and sentences. Our tests showed that children and adults learn between 20 and 30 words a game – without knowing it!
Me and the girls
Taken aback by how well it worked, I decided I wanted to share KLOO and have fun building a new business. I left my previous job as Managing Director at IMG and worked with an Oxford University linguist and language teachers to design and perfect the game. After 18 months of development we launched KLOO at The Language Show, London, UK in October 2010. Since then KLOO has started appearing and selling in book stores, specialist language shops, games stores, Amazon and on kloogame.com .
KLOO was invented to meet a real need: to create a way of learning a language that is natural, easy and fun. In less than 60 seconds you can start creating sentences in foreign language and building your vocabulary in the natural way we learned our first language. If you have as much fun as we have had as a family, l know you’ll be very happy.
In March 2011 KLOO won “BEST CLASSIC TOY” award at the Dr Toy Awards in the USA. Dr Toy said : “KLOO brings the joy of playing cards and the educational value of learning a language to a new generation of families and schools. For anyone wishing to learn a second language, KLOO is the perfect game.”
Race to Madrid with KLOO