Recent Discoveries on Babies' Language Learning Abilities

[patreiche]

I think the reason no one has answered your question is because no one has any idea whether it works or not.

[Kimba15]

Hi everyone,

I have just contacted Patricia Kuhl and her team at the University of Washington and have sent an email with a list of questions.

I will post a reply if I get one. I am not holding my breathe Im sure she is an extremely busy woman and not always available to answer questions.

[mmom]

Hi everybody,
You can get the answer you all wanted from youtube.
I remember I watched it sometime ago. They Patricia Kuhl explained in detailed.

[Cris mother of G and GG]

Hi Guys,

Great point about the transition period, where they will start to pick up things from videos... when would that be?

Anyway, one very interesting thing that I've done to my kids and I would like you guys to "test" with your kids just to see the reaction...

I put on a DVD that they have never seem before in a different language such as French, and they go through it without complaining... it is hillarious, I don't speak French and they are not familiarised with it... and I have also done it with DVD's that they have seem and the same thing... no reaction, I find it surprising specially from Gabi (3 years), Georgia is 20 months, so she doesn't sit still for anything, so she comes and goes from the room as per usual...

Another thing I can guarantee is that they might no learn a language, but they sure pick up new vocabulary from it as I have lots of DVD's in Portuguese and I see Gabi singing lyrics from it and I ask her what does it means and she explains it perfectly.

So, it might not be effective to teach babies under 1 years of age, but until proven wrong, it still worth a try for older ones...

Should we write a letter to Dr. Kuhl, asking if she has come accross to any evidence of the effectiveness of Language DVDs for older children?

Just a though...

[kimmba]

This is one of the most important discoveries on babies' early language learning abilities. I've watched this video clip over the past 3 hours, I took my time to make sure that I understand it at the best of my abilities, with all the commons made available by you all above.

There are a few points I would like to make in regards to this discussion, some of them can be find form the film itself:

1. According to what this new research discovers, the sooner we create a second/foreign language interactive /socially engaging learning environment for babies/infants, the better it is to their later language development. This includes the faster and more complex first language acquisition at the later stage (24 months, this film refers to in their research).

2. From the recent new neuroscience (MEG) available, phonetic learning is a "Pathway" to language implications for reading and disabilities. the sooner we can identify that a child has the language learning disability, the sooner we can help to address the problem.

3. Babies learning depends a lot on the social interaction, therefore, a foreign language DVD or audio doesn't really help an infant younger than 12 months old. This doesn't mean that a 30 months old's toddler would have no benefit of watching a foreign language DVD whatsoever. This is because the way a 30 months old's learning is different to that of a 6 or 7.5 months old's infant. Again, the social interaction plays a vital tool to their early learning as well.

There is no argument about it. I have seen a few hundred Melbourne families in the past 3 years that tried to learn a second language (when both parents only have one, English), and, with a great % of them gave up in less than 6 months and a further few % of them gave up in less than 12 months. This is largely because parents couldn't see pass the point that babies and young toddlers learn more than what they can reproduce and lots of the 'hear says' of: 'bilingual babies are often slow talkers' or 'bilingual babies are more easily to develop language problems because they get confused by two or maybe three languages that's surrounding them', which is not what this video has shown us.

4. Bilingual babies love socializing with peers and love to be in a group of adults and babies company. They are learning from such a purposely organized social interaction gathering. My 19 months old, for example, is putting 6 Chinese words together, (she surprises us everyday, when I just made a statement of she was using 4 or 5 words two weeks ago, she has out grown my expectation, again) and she is making sentences since long before she was 16 months old. This is largely because she is in my Mandarin bilingual Toddler learning playgroups 4 times a week (I am running 21 bilingual learning playgroups weekly, offering 3 languages). When she was barely 11 months old, one day, in the class, she repeated out loud of what the teacher said, the whole group of mothers of 14 to 20 months old toddlers cheers, no one expects her to do so (she was the youngest one in the group, I moved her from baby class to toddler's before 11 months because she won't sit still for flash cards anymore, like most of the other babies would). Because of this surprise she made and got recognized, from that day onwards, she loves to make and repeats sounds/words after everyone. Her counting skills in both Chinese and  English follows a 'Yea' after '10'. I call her little parrot. She also recognizes Spanish flash cards and sounds, I never count how many Spanish words she learns during the weekly session, but she repeats after you as clear as she can be. English is the domain language at home because my husband speaks English ONLY until recently. He is now learning Mandarin with our third baby and he picks it up a lot more than in the past 9 years of our marriage all together.

5. From an individual's academic point of view to the benefit of a society, Early learning plays an important role. If we would like to see the preparation gap disappears maybe we have to make sure that the early learning stars really early.

Finally, I am very happy to say that all the way along, I've been doing the hard work of helping and promoting the early bilingual language learning, now, watching this DVD clip, has made me more strong at what I am doing and hope all of you out there who are not sure what to do or still not able to make up your mind of 'which' language to give it to your child other than English would stop wondering and gather all the act together, giving your child the best gift you can possible give it to him/her, starting an early language learning soon.

Remember, up until the age of 7 still is a good start, although the sooner the better. Babies are the citizens of the world (the beginning of Prof. Patricia Kuhl's speech)

Regards to all and any discussions.

Marisha

[hypatia]

I put on a DVD that they have never seem before in a different language such as French, and they go through it without complaining... it is hillarious, I don't speak French and they are not familiarised with it... and I have also done it with DVD's that they have seem and the same thing... no reaction, I find it surprising specially from Gabi (3 years), Georgia is 20 months, so she doesn't sit still for anything, so she comes and goes from the room as per usual..

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! 

[Kimba15]

I too have experienced that reaction with Little Pim to. Even when my daughter was less than 1

[Nikita]

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...

[LDSMom]

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.

[luckylucy]

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. 

[Joha]

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.

[kimmba]

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.

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