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6 year old girl FLUENT from TV!!

  Tags: Children | TV
 Language Learning Forum : General discussion Post Reply
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healing332
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5626 days ago

164 posts - 211 votes 

 
 Message 1 of 67
15 July 2009 at 7:55pm | IP Logged 
I have described how Movie disecting was a big part of my learning Spanish in less than a year..(along with my non-translated readings)..for those who want to do what i did here http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?T ID=15869&PN=2

Now..I have found a powerful study of a 6 year old Finnish girl who learned English with no other contact with English but a television.

No English friends and no schooling..This study was done by Finnish Professor Jaana Jylha-Laide (She states that television was wrongly dismissed as a language learning tool because previous studies only dealt with straight program watching not disecting)


I searched everywhere but could not find the study online.. Well..to my surprise once again the FREE public library had this! I will share the link at the end of the post!

Actually her method was similiar to my movie disecting....This girl would watch cartoons and videotape them..she would rewind them continually.. here are the highlights!
1. TV was her hobby...She preferred catoons and videotapped them
2. 2-3 hours a day of viewing
3. After several viewings she would rewind to parts she liked and watched again..
4. She memorized each line and said lines many times just before the speaker
5. She never heard a translation!
6. Finally she learned the program by heart..
7. The rate of Speed in the cartoon varied from slow to fast..Slower speech was easier to learn
8. Quote from the reseachers

"She seemed to have been able to acquire the English grammer and an almost native-like pronounciation of American English, mastering many sounds that are often problematic for Finnish learners of English"

This is an incredible study that I suggest you read ..it is 10 pages long..



Last night i watched "Tilsamman" for the 1st time after watching and disecting this movie 4 times 2 weeks ago..I was shocked that I was understanding all the swedish for the first 24 minutes! then i lost it and my understanding came on and off..This is an amazing achievement for me as I knew none of this movie or the swedish language 3 weeks ago

Also..The week off from this movie Tillsamman made me understand more when I came back to it...
(i have been watching "My life as a dog" 2 times this week so far) I watch a movie in the new language everyday
Here is the link to the girl from Finland ..

http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/custom/portlets/recordD etails/detailmini.jsp?_nfpb=true&_&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue _0=EJ496616&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=no&accno=EJ496616

If you live in the usa ..you can go to the public library ..it is in their ERIC catalog for free!






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Paskwc
Pentaglot
Senior Member
Canada
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450 posts - 624 votes 
Speaks: Hindi, Urdu*, Arabic (Levantine), French, English
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 Message 2 of 67
16 July 2009 at 12:45am | IP Logged 
I'm not a parent, a doctor, or an expert on childhood development, but isn't 2 or 3 hours of tv a lot for a child of that age?

Edited by Paskwc on 16 July 2009 at 12:45am

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healing332
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5626 days ago

164 posts - 211 votes 

 
 Message 3 of 67
16 July 2009 at 2:08am | IP Logged 
I don't think that in USA and Europe 2-3 hours is a lot for a 6 year old.. i think kids are watching about 6 hours average per day.. Also Here is another guy doing the tv method to learn Chinese and Japanese. He is different from me in that he does not seem to be Breaking the shows down as i do..just watching them ..Also he has ordered hundreds of Asian videos on Amazon. I think the movies must blend into your readings and then start speaking to everyone even a few words in your daily life..as a cirlce the brain cannot escape from.

Here is his tv method http://natural-language-acquisition.blogspot.com/2009_03_01_ archive.html

he even logs the number of hours watched..over 500 hours in Chinese! I will not do this ..you must circle the brain not just slam it! he also uses dictionaries which i will not..
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goosefrabbas
Triglot
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United States
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 Message 4 of 67
16 July 2009 at 2:22am | IP Logged 
This is what pretty much almost all kids do in Norway, Sweden, and Finland. There is nothing new here.
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Cainntear
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Senior Member
Scotland
linguafrankly.blogsp
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 Message 5 of 67
16 July 2009 at 2:36am | IP Logged 
And what of it, H332?

This is one case, therefore not statistically significant. One datum is not a dataset -- a single datum is an outlier and disregarded when it comes to drawing supportable conclusions. This is not a proof, but an invitation to further study.

The girl was 6. While differences in neuroplasticity and learning capacity between adults and children are disputed, the current weight of evidence suggests that what's applicable to 6-year-olds is irrelevant to post-pubescents. This is most evident when we consider that one of the notable results was a near-native accent, which we would not expect an adult to achieve through your "disection" approach, even assuming the approach was optimal in every other way (which I doubt). Besides, we all know that kids love watching the same thing time and time again -- my own little sisters drove me mad with The Little Mermaid in particular -- but it's just not the same for adults. Sure, you may have watched your favourite film five times, but my sisters in their younger years could watch the same film every day for a week!

Furthermore, the video in question was not just any old material, but infants' cartoons. The paper identifies features specific to cartoons that just are not present in other video, particularly adult materials: "the 'here and now' principle of 'modified' registers... sentences that are simple and complete... very few dysfluencies... repetition is used frequently... rate of speech is relatively low in some".

There really is nothing in there that is relevant to anyone here, and there's nothing "powerful" about it.

Edited by Cainntear on 16 July 2009 at 2:37am

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jpxt2
Triglot
Groupie
United States
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Speaks: English, Spanish*, French
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 Message 6 of 67
16 July 2009 at 3:12am | IP Logged 
Haha, awesome. This girl is heroic. I've met people who learned English just watching movies and TV. In fact, that is pretty much how I did it (Thank you, Power Rangers!)

Edited by jpxt2 on 16 July 2009 at 3:13am

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TheBiscuit
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Senior Member
Mexico
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 Message 7 of 67
16 July 2009 at 4:51am | IP Logged 
Paskwc wrote:
I'm not a parent, a doctor, or an expert on childhood development, but isn't 2 or 3 hours of tv a lot for a child of that age?

Not in Mexico! She would be a child that barely watches TV here. 5 hours a day is probably the average here.
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healing332
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5626 days ago

164 posts - 211 votes 

 
 Message 8 of 67
16 July 2009 at 3:35pm | IP Logged 
Cainntear wrote:
And what of it, H332?

The girl was 6. While differences in neuroplasticity and learning capacity between adults and children are disputed, the current weight of evidence suggests that what's applicable to 6-year-olds is irrelevant to post-pubescents. This is most evident when we consider that one of the notable results was a near-native accent, which we would not expect an adult to achieve through your "disection" approach, even assuming the approach was optimal in every other way (which I doubt). Besides, we all know that .


NONSENSE!..THIS IS THE KIND OF THINKING THAT HAS SET THIS COUNTRY BACK FOR THE LAST 8 YEARS..opps sorry..that was George Bush..But seriously..YOU ARE WRONG!

Neuroplasticity proves that adults CAN learn languages just as well as children!..The old Genius but lazy slacker brain in all of us wants us to believe that only children can do this..WHY? Because the brain is a lazy genius that sees no reason for another language!..Here is PROOF that adults can learn languages as well as children (WHEN THEY TRY!)http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/06/0506150605 45.htm

Also You said the televison shows that the girl watched were not for adults NONSENSE! Look at the shows she watched..Captain Caveman(which i watched as an adult..Transformers(which was so popular with adults that they made a movie of it)

As for more proof there are TONS OF THEM

There is a case that showed a mexican immigrant who came to America and worked as a delivery boy in a Hebrew restaurant..within 1 1/2 years he was FLUENT IN HEBREW..He was so good.they did a test with him on the phone and he fooled Israelis who thought they were speaking to someone from their country. When they interviewed the Mexican he said I just listened to them all day and started speaking like they did" NO ACCENT!

Why did i learn Spanish in 5 months because my brain was motivated knowing that if i learned the language I was taking Latinas home!


I am glad i never heard of Pimsluer, Rosetta Stone..or any of these programs when i was doing Spanish..Why?.. people limit you to what you can achieve in life!

My Grandfather told me they had scientific papers in school on why a human being cannot run a 4 minute mile..then British runner Roger Bannister broke the 4 minute mile!! ..Now today almost every kid on a high school track team can do a 4 minute mile!!

Why? Because Bannister stopped this limited thinking..

The heights Basketball Player Micheal Jordan leaped was not physically possible 60 years ago..today the profesional woman would bet some of the pro from 60 years ago

I am convinced that adult can learn a new language better than children and faster!

I will not wait 2 years to learn a new language NONSENSE! I refuse to believe this!!



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