Are DVDs enough to teach a language?

Early Learning Teaching Your Child - Signing, Speaking, Languages
1

Hi,
Sorry if this has been covered before.

DH’s first language is Turkish and he learned English when he came here to the UK. His mother speaks Turkish and French, which is a family language. I am English and studied French at University. My problem is that they don’t take languages seriously. DS1 is nearly 3 and starts school in two years. He responds to commands in French but I haven’t heard him speak any. He knows when Turkish is being spoken and repeats “Good morning, good morning” to Turkish speakers.

I am worried because my husband doesn’t speak exclusively in Turkish. He mixes Turkish and English even within the same sentence.
My mother in law maybe speaks French when she looks after my son, but mixes with English and Turkish. If her friends are round, I suspect they all just speak English for the two days per week DS1 is there.

Neither of them bother with books, because they simply aren’t interested, although MIL does show DS1 some bilingual flashcards.
DS1 doesn’t speak any language much yet, just a bit of English although I suspect it’s because he doesn’t want to.

  1. My question is, will he learn French and Turkish to a satisfactory level with this approach? Really, I would like him to read before he goes to school because then he will be busy with clubs, homework etc.I guess I could do this myself for French but I would be interested to hear from parents with an older child to whom they taught a language they don’t really speak (Turkish in my case) and whether your child speaks now.
  2. My husband barely speaks Turkish with the new baby either. I show him the same Disney dvd every day just for exposure but don’t know if he will pick Turkish up from this, don’t they need to be spoken to directly?
  3. Does anyone have any Turkish resources? websites etc
    Any comments appreciated
    Thanks
2

I think interaction is always the best way to learn a language. That said, I am using almost entirely dvds and similar media to teach Chinese to my son.

The ideal situation for you would be one parent, one language - ie. you speak only English, hubby speaks Turkish, grandma speaks French. If hubby and grandma aren’t cooperating, then anything you can do will certainly help! I would definitely recommend reading to your son in French - I find that bedtime stories are an easy-to-remember time for adding to language learning.

I wouldn’t worry about English so much - he will pick that up with no problems between school and friends - if you feel up to switching so that you are the primary French speaker in the family, do so.

Tiny babies learn so much better from dvds and interaction. The best way would be to get Dad speaking Turkish all the time. Or at least setting aside a part of the day when he speaks and plays with the kids only in Turkish.

Where abouts are you in England? There are so few brits on the board, its always nice to meet another :slight_smile:

3

Hi MummyRoo,
Thanks for your reply.

How old is your son and how is he doing with Chinese? Wow!
I heard of OPOL, but it’s trying to get them to do it… especially difficult when I’m not even there!
Great idea for the stories, I’m getting some sent over by French friends.

The only thing is, I think the lack of English is causing him social problems, especially at preschool. He has days where he hits other kids round the head at preschool almost constantly and pushes them. I don’t think it’s all malicious, at least half of it is wanting to play/get their attention. The Preschool Manager is mistakenly starting to think he has special needs and talks of getting him a one-to-one worker!!! I don’t want this!!! So this is why I’m not doing French myself, even though I could. Maybe I am wrong and I should do so for the long-term gain.

Sadly can’t get Dad to speak Turkish much at all. This is why I was asking other people if they thought a DVD was enough… He works long shifts and is often away for days, although this might change due to a recent change in his job situation. He certainly won’t see them everyday (hence the DVD input) and when he does, so much is English or onomatopoiec. Arrgh, so annoying! I had to work so hard to pick up my languages…

I live in Buxton, Derbyshire.

Angela

4

Hello again!

We’re in Buckinghamshire, so the other end of the country :slight_smile:

Chinese is actually my son’s third language. He knows dog and cat (that he uses) and repeats several other words together with me or the voice on whichever media he’s watching. I suspect he knows a lot more that that, but doesn’t need to use it with me. I am getting some books and plan to ‘teach’ more actively over the next year or so, introducing some simple conversation.

His second language, Russian, is his father’s language. We don’t live together (or even in the same country) so although he is the primary Russian speaker in theory, the few words and silly rhymes that he uses every time they speak was getting us nowhere and so I have taken over, despite my grammar issues. Since I have started LR in Russian, we have focused our Russian conversation a lot more around reinforcing the words we are learning with LR and his vocabulary has tripled in a week. He says about a dozen words, knows a lot more (for example he will point at bodyparts, even if he won’t vocalise the word) and will respond to a lot of commands and reacts if I mention things like biscuits or strawberries. He used three or four words and barely responded to anything two weeks ago!

I think it might be worth getting your son’s speech checked out. The other languages shouldn’t dramatically reduce his vocabulary in English, especially as it appears that the majority of his language exposure is English. There is no longer the assumption that lots of languages cause language delay, so if he isn’t speaking at the level he should for his age, get him checked out. I don’t want to panic you - he might just be taking his time (my son is still adamently not walking, though the physio says he is perfectly able and not to worry) but it is usually best to be safe than sorry, and an expert can put your mind at ease.

I would still make the effort to speak some French with him - even if it is just a couple of stories at night or during mealtimes. I shouldn’t think a few minutes a day will cause any problems.

Here are some warning signs that your son may have speech/hearing problems and needs to be checked out:

25 to 36 months

at 26 months, uses no two-word simple sentences
at 30 months, can't name at least three body parts
at 30 months, can't be understood by anyone in her family
by 32 months, has difficulty singing fragments of nursery rhymes
at 36 months, doesn't ask questions
at 36 months, can't be understood by strangers at least half the time
by 36 months, is unable to articulate initial consonants (for example, says "all" instead of "ball"
by 36 months, is unable to name most common household objects

( from http://www.babycenter.com/0_warning-signs-of-a-toddlers-language-delay_12293.bc)

5

Hello again,

Thanks for the info. Sounds like you are doing really well. So how much Russian do you speak/understand?

Maybe I can put my LR in Turkish, although it would still be my dodgy voice clips, translations etc. As for French, we listen to plenty of nursery rhymes on youtube but I will start to read.

We are getting Speech and Language appointments, paediatrician etc, so that is all in the pipeline. He doesn’t ask “why?” although I’ve heard him say it in Turkish, and had to prompt my husband that that required a response. Thanks for the list. I’m not worried because he had a big operation at five weeks’ old (which can’t have exactly HELPED his development because it cut through his core muscles, affecting his physical progress) so he’s lucky to be alive. He has also had problems with his eyesight, so couldn’t see my babysigns, things held up infront of him, books etc, which hasn’t been a great help either. Also, DH and I didn’t speak until the ages of 4 and 2 respectively. Whilst he doesn’t communicate much (I’m hungry, thirsty, tired, etc), he does recite the alphabet and know all 52 letters. He also recognises numbers and knows lines from The Gruffalo, which isn’t a lot of use in every day life, admittedly.

Ah well, Susan Boyle was written off at the age of 2 as well :wink:
Take care

6

Depends what do you mean? To teach only few words in another language? I will say yes, but if you want to teach the whole language I will say not! It is tested that children need to hear everyday and speak it to be able to learn it! My daughter is learning chinese as a third language, we use brillkids, dvds, you tube but the the truth is she only can speak from 1-10 in chinese, and she may have around 50 words vocabulary. It may take her lots of years to be able to speak chinese, she doesn’t hear it all the time, and we also don’t play her dvds every day…she has a chinese tutor once a week but I think it is not enough!
I will like to ask her tutor to move to our house…I think that will she will really learn the language. :wink:

7

I wish I could afford a Chinese tutor for NikkI!

I agree that DVDs won’t teach a language thotoughy, but it can help with learning the correct pronunciation.

I am glad to hear that your son is doing so well after such a difficult start. I can sympathise somewhat, as Nikki was born at 29 weeks and spent six weeks in special care (thankfully he just needed to get bigger, stronger and learn to feed - I don’t know what I would have done if he needed surgery!) and combined with really bad reflux this has put him a lot behind in his physical (crawl-walk) development. I am getting fed up of people asking why he isn’t walking yet!

It sounds like he might just be taking his time (Einstein didn’t speak until 3, so maybe you have a future genius :D)

For Russian, I lived there 5 years and despite a lack of official qualifications I speak at least as well as some of my friends with degrees in Russian. I understand most things but don’t speak as much. I am gradually increasing the amount of Russian I speak, as ideally I would like a minimum 60-40 Russian-English at home. At the moment it is more like 20-80 :stuck_out_tongue:

Good luck with the French stories.

8

This is a great topic IMO. Ultimately you will need more than DVDs to teach a whole new language. The important thing to keep in mind is the child will give the target language as much status as you give it. If your child is exposed to the language through DVDs (perhaps multiple programs), TV programs, Books, Family members, Play mates, Board Games, Video games, Apps, etc. It is a safe bet that the child will recognize the importance of the language in their life and therefore learn it. If the target language is seen as a passing fad by the child, then they are likely to value it only for entertainment purposes, and that interest is usually fleeting.
Along those same lines, it is beneficial to take an interest in the cultures related to a particular language. Language can be very dry by itself, but by adding the spice of culture, whole new worlds can be opened for the child all the while raising the status of the target language.

9

We are using dvds for teaching spanish and I am also planning to use dvds for other languages. With my experience I think there is a chance that a child could pick up quite a lot just from watching dvd like LP or whistlefritz but the downside is that there is not that many dvds which would lead you and your child through the language as they do not produce them fast enough. If there was something like curriculum with lots of material -more advance words,sentences,situations…to play to your child that I think would work quite well.
I wish Little Pim has more dvds to use :yes:

10

My mother tongue is English and my DH’s is French. I self taught myself Turkish for more than 7 years and my Turkish is very well for someone who only learnt from books and listening to Turkish music. During a trip to Turkey many of the locals thought I was Turkish! I also speak to my little one in Turkish, not often at the moment, and we also have Turkish music playing at home daily - for me.

Unfortunately Turkish is a very hard language to find materials in so unless you get books and DVDs imported directly from Turkey or if your DH has other family members who can send them, it’s going to be very difficult for your kids to learn Turkish at a satisfactory level if both your husband and MIL are less enthusiastic to speak exclusively in their language.

Also, understanding why they don’t want to take it seriously is also important to know. Most Turkish people are very proud of their language and culture.

As for French, materials are very easy to find and if you play full length movies along with basic vocabulary builders like baby Einstein, they will pick up enough vocabulary, but certainly won’t have them near close to fluency. The best option would be to spend time in a French/Turkish speaking Country often or to send them to a bilingual school. Try learning the language/s yourself, take an interest and find other mothers/fathers who speak that target language who also have kids.

My 2yo can only count to 10 and say seni seviyorum in Turkish but I really don’t spend enough time talking to her at all in Turkish right now. I have a lot of Turkish books and things ready for the formal lessons though.

11

I think DVDs are a good starting point especially for parents who are non-speakers of the target language and who do not have access to native speakers to interact with their kids. My daughter, at almost 3.5 years old, has gone through Little Pim, Whistlefritz, Babybit, Wink to Learn, Muzzy, and Professor Toto and these DVDs, in addition to lots of audiobooks, music CDs, and interactive Ipad books have provided her with enough exposure to French and Spanish for her to be able to understand cartoons in these languages and speak simple sentences. She is also now able to work on Rosetta Stone by herself each morning (I only have to help her with setting up the computer and the headset) and is almost halfway through level 1 for both Fr and Sp. However, these are all just temporary measures to keep the sounds and rhythms of these non-native languages alive in her brain until we can move back to a place where she can participate in Fr/Sp playgroups and have access to native speakers.

12

I agree with all the sentiments shared. The end goal is to expose the child to as much of the “minority” language as possible and DVDs go a long way towards that, but they are certainly not the only tool in our arsenal. There are many other tools that can supplement the DVDs. Books, Music, Games, Apps, Software can all be great tools. Here is a little excerpt from a an article from the Center for Family Research in Diverse Contexts. “Before 6 months of age, simultaneous learners learn both languages at similar rates and do not prefer one language over the other. This is because they build separate but equally strong language systems in their brains for each of the languages they hear. These separate systems allow children to learn more than one language without becoming confused. In fact, the pathways infants develop in their brains for each of the languages they hear are similar to the single pathway developed by children who are only exposed to English.
At 6 months, children begin to notice differences between languages and may begin to prefer the language they hear more. This means that parents must be careful to provide similar amounts of exposure to both languages :yes: ; otherwise, children may begin to drop vocabulary of the language to which they are less exposed (Espinosa, 2008; Kuhl, 2004; Kuhl et al., 2006; Tabors, 2008).”
This should not discourage those who haven’t started by 6 months, it should serve to encourage us to act as early as possible and do STICK WITH IT, IT IS WORKING :slight_smile:

13

Hi, I just have to share this :biggrin:
We have used DVDs and youtube videos only for about two weeks to teach my DD spanish as we don’t speak any and today she was counting in spanish to ten while she was playing :yes: . It was so so cute and she really liked our happy faces and didn’t mind repeating it to everyone ( very busy house today). You could tell she was very proud of herself. Our targeted language is english and all of the other ones we let her listen to are being used more like a brain excercise for her and for me lol for now. Her understanding in english is excellent but she doesn’t use it very much, not even for counting as she did in spanish. I think it is the time to look for more spanish material lol

14

I wonder if it is a good idea or any would be willing to come on Skype and form a group to teach our kids multiple languages. :rolleyes: Just a thought. We can find one native speaker of a language and by interaction, do like fun activities for few minutes and close…main reason is language exposure. We can form slides of unfamiliar words mentioned and teach them ourselves to our kids. Offcourse, this can be recorded too as maybe it would be difficult for everyone to be present online at the same time.

15

What are the nessecities of teaching more than one language?
What’s are the benefits?
I know my Lil can understand three different language only by interaction of different community in her playgroup and using sometime with me which my MIL could not able to understand.
What will be the benefits of her later life or she will face problem due to multi- language?
please advice. :mellow:

16

IMO being able to communicate in another language besides English is a big plus for future career opportunities. Before I became a SAHM, I was working in International universities as I am able to speak 5 languages and understand 8 in total (yet don’t speak the 3). I was also very popular amongst my students as I could sympathize with them in a way my co-workers couldn’t. I could laugh with them, help them and give them advice in their own language.

From a career point-of-view learning a language shows that person has drive and motivation. It’s not easy to learn a language, especially if you are not surrounded by the language. I was able to learn from having just 2 things to get me there 1.Drive 2. passion. Without having an interest in the culture as well as the language, I feel it’s harder to learn. Turkish came to me so easily as it was a big passion of mine (and still is).

My ILS cannot understand anything I say to my child but I refuse to not speak in that language. I don’t want her growing up to feel embarrassed or ashamed. The only problem I ever faced was envy. I couldn’t speak a language without being accused of “boasting” since I never had formal lessons in any language and learning any language comes to me so easily.

Also, you never know where you are going to be living in the future. I never had an interest in French nor an interest in the culture of France and now I am an immigrant in France (for my husband) and I chose to study Italian instead of French at school as I thought I’d never need to learn French. French has been the hardest language for me to learn as I have no interest though the language is so easy.

17

Thanks for your replies everyone. Very interesting :slight_smile:

18

My husband is a native Spanish speaker and refuses to speak Spanish to our son. He has nothing against it he just can’t switch his brain to that mode as he associates us with English. Err! What can I do? All you can do is just try to give them as much exposure as possible and just let go of the results. In my case I had to realize that it was more important in the long run to have a relaxed atmosphere at home. Even though we didn’t fight about it, it still added a bit of tension when I would suggest that he speak Spanish to him. He felt like I was criticizing him as a dad. I know my son will learn something if he is exposed. And even though I speak mostly in English to my son I do also speak to him in Spanish. We also read books and sing songs in Spanish as much as possible.