Despite what parents subconsciously believe, TV, DVDs, and computer games have no magic powers to teach your child a first, a second or a third language. But your child can learn from all of them if you are there to foster interaction and choose (later âhelpâ to choose) TV shows according to the age level and interests. Anyway you shouldnât rush because babies seem to get little benefit from screens, at least according to the American Academy of Pediatrics, which recommends NO TELEVISION AT ALL for children under two. The reason is that:
Infants may stare at the bright colors and motion on a screen, but their brains are incapable of making sense or meaning out of all those bizarre pictures. It takes 2 full years for a babyâs brain to develop to the point where the symbols on a screen come to represent their equivalents in the real world.
Because of this confusion, children up to age 3 learn better from the real world than they do from any screen, especially when it comes to language. They do seem to learn a little more if theyâre watching in the company of a person who is talking to them about what theyâre seeing, in the same way you would while looking at a picture book. Read the rest hereÂ
Understandably, when parents âdiscoverâ edutainment (education + entertainment) like Baby Einstein Language Nursery they are quickly convinced that their children will pick up the language they hear (and classical music, and maths and quantum physics). Maybe, but youâll have to supply all the interaction required to learn a language at this stage. Experiments have shown that the frequency with which children are read to in one or two languages is directly related to their vocabulary size in that language while the frequency of watching TV in one or two languages is not correlated to their vocabulary size in either language. This should make parents think about what TV to watch, when and especially how. Carla has been watching TV since she was two. We started with In the Night Garden (CBeebies), an updated version of the Teletubbies, in which Iggle Piggle, Upsy Daisy or the Tomliboos speak a pre-verbal language while a narrator (Derek Jacobi) tells a simple story, so simple that Carla soon got bored so we moved to Waybuloo, a world where the piplings were featured in more complex stories, used invented words and practice âyogoâ, a sort of yoga for toddlers. This was the beginning and weâd do it again though we were happy to leave those shows behind. During her past two years Carla has been watching CBeebies mostly, not because we are obsessed with edutainment but simply because the Spanish TDT channels (Clan, Boing, Disney) offer a cartoon-heavy diet (seasoned with some tween TV shows that begin to catch Carlaâs eye, OMG!). Up to now we have preferred a varied menu with shows which extend after they finish, as when Mister Maker gives ideas to have fun creating amazing things, when Katy teaches children simple recipes in I can cook or Jess goes on a mini-beast adventure in the garden. By the way, in these three shows the children are the protagonists. Now Carla is six and wants more sophisticated TV shows, sheâs more sensitive to humor and enjoys the comedy in Wild Kratts, Odd Squad, or Stuck in the middle. The good thing is that we can still watch TV together.
This is a short list of Carlaâs favorite TV shows (which are still on air), how old she was when she watched them, type of content and channel:
So this is what we watch with Carla. In our next post weâll explain how to watch those channels (and many others).
  TV CAN BE VERY GOOD FOR YOUNG BILINGUALS (BUT NOT TOO YOUNG!) Despite what parents subconsciously believe, TV, DVDs, and computer games have no magic powers to teach your child a first, a second or a third language.
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