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Using children’s material | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5701 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes  Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 41 of 46 05 September 2011 at 11:42pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I did watch at least one entire episode of Teletubbies in Mandarin with a friend. I did not hope to learn anything from it, just found it somewhere online and thought it was a funny idea to watch Teletubbies in Mandarin. That was more than three and a half years ago so I don't remember it very clearly; but I think the segment with the children had finger painting in it. I never made it far with Mandarin before I decided to concentrate on my other languages first; I think I worked through 20 lessons of the first level of Pimsleur, maybe thirty or so Chinesepod lessons and I had should have watched one Taiwanese drama series at that time. I still could translate almost everything for my friend and even tell her that some of the words sounded awfully childish. Maybe other episodes or other languages would have been more challenging; I don't know.
I also spent ten months as au pair in Spain and probably watched about one to one and a half hours of TV in Spanish and Catalan a day. (Not by my own choice.) Most of it were cartoons, anime and educational videos for preschoolers; though usually I just was in the room while doing chores and, of course, paying attention to the children. One thing I always noticed when caring for children, particularly preschoolers, is that they repeat the things they find interesting or want to learn a lot, and that entertainment for young children tends to cater to that. I personally prefer to actively repeat the parts I do not get over in-built redundancy. Of course, that's my own preference. When it comes to the general usefulness of children's material for adults - actually, I remember having heard that in stroke patients, creating an immersion environment in which the patient is treated and encouraged like a child can help them regain their language skills, but I do believe that the important point is once again interacton with the care-giver. And who has the money and also the, well, fearlessness in the face of possible embarrassment to create a kind of 'growing up in the second language' immersion environment and live in it for several years? I would like to hear if somebody does. Books, audio plays and videos/TV shows can of course accompany such a, well, study regime as well as any other, but if you're following a regular textbook, you might find that the overlap isn't very big. At least I find the return I get from working with (native) material that is closer to the register I started out with to be greater than what I get from working with material for children. Of course, once your level is higher it becomes easy to deal witch children's material - but at that point, you should be free to choose to work with most entertainment or educational material aimed at native speakers and there is no need to 'work your way up from children's to adult level'; it should do to choose the kind of material you can work with best. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| William Camden Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6207 days ago 1936 posts - 2333 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French | Message 42 of 46 17 September 2011 at 7:33pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I am not sure about adults using children's material, but using comics and graphic novels to learn foreign languages is definitely a good idea.
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| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4844 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 43 of 46 18 September 2011 at 4:23pm | IP Logged | |||||
Agreed. The ability to read Tintin in the original should be enough motivation to learn French! 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| William Camden Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6207 days ago 1936 posts - 2333 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French | Message 44 of 46 18 September 2011 at 7:17pm | IP Logged | |||||
Re French specifically, the Franco-Belgian enthusiasm for graphic novels gives a learner a lot of scope to improve his or her knowledge of the language in this way. Edited by William Camden on 18 September 2011 at 7:18pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| jed Newbie United States Joined 4751 days ago 12 posts - 33 votes Speaks: English* | Message 45 of 46 20 September 2011 at 1:09am | IP Logged | |||||
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I like graphic novels/comic books because of the visual clues and because they often have a lot of conversational language that is current.
Something else to consider is thrillers. Books by David Baldacci, James Patterson and Mary Higgins Clark are written at a pretty low level (6th, 7th or 8th grade?) and have a lot of current vocab/language. They are translated into quite a few languages, so you can get a foreign translation and then pick up an English copy in a thrift store for under a dollar - and you have your own dual reader of sorts. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| William Camden Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6207 days ago 1936 posts - 2333 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French | Message 46 of 46 22 September 2011 at 2:32pm | IP Logged | |||||
Yes, French-language graphic novels give a pretty good guide to the colloquial language, in my experience. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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