In these weeks of lockdown, during which parents and teachers have had to organise themselves differently to provide resources in Maltese to students, Merlin Publishers have been doing their utmost to give their contribution so that children may have exposure to spoken Maltese. And this is how Xpatapumm! was born.

Xpatapumm! Kotba u paroli għat-tfal is Merlin's first-ever podcast in Maltese for children, completely free of charge of course. The first and second episodes have been launched during the past two weeks and every Tuesday a new episode is released.

Each episode includes a short conversation in Maltese, followed by storytelling from a different Maltese book each week.

The podcast is co-hosted by Merlin together with award-winning author Clare Azzopardi, and will also be having special guest authors reading in various future episodes.

A good number of schools have incorporated the podcast Xpatapumm! into their lessons and some came up with creative ways in which the podcast can be put to good use:

-          the podcast may be given as homework to the students to listen to, for class online discussion the following day during their Maltese lesson

-          as listening practice for read-out and spoken Maltese

-          as listening comprehension, where the students listen to the podcast and are then asked some questions about the content

-          as a starting point for Maltese conversation

-          as a source of storytelling, where for example students are invited to come up with an ending to the story Clare would have started off in each episode

Two episodes have already  been released and the series continues in the coming weeks with a new episode every Tuesday. On the various podcast platforms you may also subscribe to the series, ensuring you don't miss out on any episode!

Xpatapumm! is available on most podcast platforms, including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Breaker, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Overcast, Pocket Casts and RadioPublic. The easiest way to access it is by simply going to Merlin's dedicated podcast homepage:

https://anchor.fm/merlinpublishers/.