I experienced the reaction of children in front of Little Pim (chinese or japanese). All children under the age of 6 sat down on the couch and watched without making any comments. Children other than 6 asked me what language that was! :nowink:
I too have experienced that reaction with Little Pim to. Even when my daughter was less than 1
I experienced this too. To be honest, my nearly 2 year old seems to be more interested in foreign languages like baby learns chinese, little pim, dora in french, than TW, and english flashcard dvds. She hasnt seen dora in English, but when first exposed to dora in french she sat and watched. Second time around, less interest. That’s natural. I think she’s bored by repetition but intrigued by new things…
We speak english at home, my son is learning spanish through a teacher/playgroup 2 hours a day 5 days a week, and he will watch with intense interest spanish cartoons and Little Pim Spanish. He’s 26 months, and I think the videos have really reinforced what he’s learning in playgroup.
I definitely think age has something to do with kids absorbing languages through dvds or not absorbing it. Once the child is familiar with the language, watching the dvd must help just as it would help adults.
For those of you trying to teach our child a second language that you don’t speak, the child must be exposed to someone who speaks that language if even for just a half an hour a week. Of course more is better but I know a lot of us can’t afford it. But your child will learn every word that the person is speaking once they hear the words in context and coming out of a human beings mouth. Thousands of words and sounds can be heard in a half an hour and week after week of exposure will make a huge impact. And once the baby has had this kind of exposure (as little as it is), they will get a lot more out of the dvds.
As many of you already know, we are raising our dd “multiplingual”, if we can call it that way. She is 15 months old and I can say she is totally bilingual. She understands diffrent words in both language (English and Spanish) and compare to her “friends” of her same age she seemes to be ahead with her spoken words. So she is proof that teaching foreign languages, did not delay the learning of her native language.
About exposing kids to other languages, I found this article that I thought was interesting:
You may think it fruitless to expose infants to a foreign language before they can even talk. Guess again. The ability to distinguish and process sounds or phonemes of foreign languages is highest in the first year of life, before babies even utter their first word. Many experts now believe that babies exposed to more than one language during their first year of life will not only have an easier time learning foreign languages later in life, but actually improve their listening, problem-solving, and reasoning skills in general.
For us, even though she may not be fluent at the two languages we are exposing her and we don’t speak (German and Mandarin) right now, if her early exposure helps her to learn the language easier later in life, it was worth the try for us.
Hi Joha,
That is so true what you said about your bilingual baby daughter. My 23 months old Stella is learning the 4th language at the age of 22 months. I spoke Mandarin to her from birth and my husband speaks only English. Stella attends Spanish playgroup I am running from the age of 6 weeks and now we’ve got a French au pair for a few weeks. Within a couple of weeks listening to a ‘new’ language, she is now able to sing in French and basic daily greetings, instructions and so on.
Stella’s communicating skills and the amount of words she can say and sentences she can translate between languages is amazing. She can have a conversation with a stranger (with me) anytime. Her days has just filled with activities and our Au pair has been teaching and playing with her according to the timetable that I’ve set up for her. She won’t get board! She doesn’t learn a new language from watching DVD or listening to tapes but she has a great amount of one on one sessions weekly and in group learning interactions with teacher and children her age. She learns Mandarin on Monday, and Friday morning in toddler groups and Tuesday/ Thursday French lessons, Saturday she learns Spanish.
Stella will learn a 5th language towards the middle of the year, German, after she has enough language skills in French. She will be in our bilingual Early Learning Centre 3 days a week and learning 3 different languages.
I believe if we provide our child/baby with the right learning environment, they will absolutely benefit from it and I believe dual language immersion program is a great program for me to introduce a new language to her each time she is ready to take on a new challenge.
Very happy to see and read that there are more and more parents who are focus and aware of the benefit of early language learning for their baby.