 |
| Griffin and his cousins gather around the magic glowing tablet. |
Are these resources indeed as wonderful as I want them to be?
What can I take away from the knowledge that Griffin is more likely to clamor to play a game on the iPad (which he'll mention several times a day) than to ask if he can ride his scooter through the neighborhood (several times a week)?
(But still, that's better than his wanting to watch television several times a day, right?)
When does the iPad stop being an interactive learning tool and turn into an electronic babysitter? (And can we even avoid that when we have two little children to take care of and need occasionally to shower, cook, and clean?)
And, good grief, why have we spent so much money on other light-up-and-make-noise games* that Griffin now disdains in favor of the sleek tablet with its infinite possibilities?
 |
| Tonton Steve likes the iPad as much as the kiddos! |
My husband and I are pleased that Griffin isn't television-crazy; he likes watching Top Chef with us [and fortunately he hasn't yet tried to imitate the expletive-laden speech of the stressed-out chefs], DVDs from the library, songs and clips on YouTube, and a few DVDs and videos we have here at home. We attribute this mainly to the fact that when Griffin is home with me, I can't bear to let him spend his quality French time with me watching television in English! (I even discourage him from listening to music in English when it's just us.)
But, oh, the iPad. The iPad keeps him calm and happy in waiting rooms, at restaurants, when I'm nursing the baby, when he's the only kid at get-togethers. (And it's a lot easier to fit into the diaper bag than a couple of activity books, books to read, toys, and so forth.) He shows his native-speaking-French friends at playgroup his French iPad games, which changes up the group dynamics and boosts his confidence (he becomes the knowledgeable one!). He learns new words, new songs, new skills via the iPad, and in an interactive way (unlike if he were watching a video).
And I love playing iPad games with him and reading French books together on the device. It's very easy to encourage him to reply to me in French when he's so excited about the activities and stories! An added bonus: exposure to so many native speakers in the various apps.
I know we're fortunate to be able to buy an iPad and that many families raising children bilingually don't have access to the materials we have. You certainly don't need an iPad to teach your children another language.
But what a marvelous tool it is!
Your thoughts?
*LeapPad Learning System, Tag Reader, toy computer, Mon Premier Dokeo--all in French, thanks to eBay, eBay Canada, and amazon.fr.
No matter how beneficial the iPads are, I'm still limiting the time spent on using them. I do not want my children to be computer-addicted.
ReplyDeleteMe neither! How old are your children and how much screen time do you allow them? Do they play/watch in more than one language?
DeleteOster (1 year old) has been using an iPad for a couple of months. What does “using an iPad” look like for him?
ReplyDelete- he has three books on it (It’s a Small World, Freight Train, and Curious George)
- he has three different French flash card apps
- he has two numerical apps (one English/one French)
- he has one English alphabet app
He is allowed to use it (with him on my lap) for no more than 5 minutes at a time. And he is only to use it 3 days out of 7; so he actually only uses it for 15 minutes a week! Although, his grandma was here for the weekend and she used it with him for 30 minutes! I didn't mind because it was his grandma :)
Being a teacher that infuses technology into lessons, I feel it is important for him to learn how to utilize this piece of equipment and understand how to interact with the software. I am always with him and I prompt/praise/enforce vocabulary during his “sessions”.
You are right, it IS a marvelous tool. I don't see any problem with letting your children use the iPad at an early age, as long as they don't take advantage of it.
I've had children come to the house and they can't keep their eyes off of their device (yes, the parents bought them their own (a 6 year old), even with other children around. They watch movies, play games, etc while disengaging in play or conversation. I think when the toddlers become reliant on the device for entertainment a problem will arise.
Thanks for explaining what you allow Oster to do on the iPad--15 minutes per week sounds entirely reasonable for a one-year-old.
DeleteOne benefit of that approach is that it de-sensationalizes the toy--perhaps if we were to say "no iPad, no computer, no TV, never!", our children would really yearn for that and go crazy when they were allowed?
Your point about the parent's role when children play with gadgets like this is soooo important: it's our job to model how to use them, to engage with them kids by asking questions and directing their attention to various elements and so forth.
Like when watching TV and DVDs and movies with children--the ideal situation would be for the parent to watch alongside, prompting the kids to share their thoughts, or at least to talk about the show afterwards with older kids.
My kid (2yo) is absolutely addicted to his favourite videos on Youtube and some simple apps (find the peekaboo star behind objects...)all in English. We are trying to promote English/Spanish Bilingualism in Spain, surrounded by Spanish people and activities all day. Big challenge. Well, here is my point: There is a music group for kids here in Spain that is huge (Cantajuegos, some short of the wiggles in the US), their greatest hits are in everychild´s mouth all day. Well, thanks to things like Ipad and a consistent (pain in the neck) father, his favourite songs are "the incy wincy Spider", "the wheels on the bus", "jack and jill" and some others. He wakes up every morning saying: "papi, watch some videos on the ipad". I limit the tech-exposure by driving his attention to other things like (paper)books and puzzles but I couldn´t agree more about how useful these devices are. Especially smartphones for those non native like you and me. I´m constantly checking wordreference and googling expressions to se if I´m saying things right!!!
ReplyDeleteGreetings from one "pain in the neck" parent to another! It's good to hear from you again, Dani. How cool that your son prefers the songs in English to the more popular ones.
DeleteI'm a little smug about that sort of thing, too--Griffin knows almost nothing about Disney characters, Transformers, Spiderman, or SpongeBob, and I'm glad. However, this is starting to backfire: he is invited to a superhero-themed birthday party this weekend where the guests are supposed to dress as their favorite superhero. Well, not only does he not have a, say, Batman costume, he doesn't even have a favorite superhero! (Unless you count his daddy. Which I do!)
HAHA! Great point! Mine has succumbed to Spiderman´s charms... But of course all our superheroes speak English so in my case it´s the other way around!
DeleteI keep following and enjoying your blog and I´ve started documenting my kid´s progress here applesandmanzanas.blogspot.com (nothing serious, no frills at all but I´m kind of proud I´m doing it). Let me share with you all that I´m thrilled with our bilingual project so far. I can proudly tell it´s working much better than expected. My kid IS producing English almost as good as Spanish!! After reading your experience and other people´s ones, I wasn´t sure I´d be capable of doing it. Not many people around me understand what all this means and how it feels, but I think you guys do. Big bilingual hug from Madrid and keep posting!!
Thank you for sharing your blog! I'm looking forward to reading over your posts from this year and following your son's progress.
DeleteYes, we do understand :) and I'm so happy for you!
If you can't afford an iPad, why not invest in one of the many far cheaper non-Apple tablets out there. Regardless of our personal preferences, Android will inevitably become the standard anyway thanks to its accessibility. It will give you just the same access to foreign language radio, TV, music, books and more for a fraction of the price.
ReplyDeleteGood advice! I don't know much about the Android platform and how the available apps differ from those available from iTunes. I was thrilled to receive my iPad as a gift!
DeleteMy daughter watches little Pim French while I cook, otherwise we would never eat a home cooked meal! Sometimes she also watches T'choupi or Caillou in French on YouTube. She started watching at 18 months and just turned 2. She usually watches about 30-45 minutes. That is the only screen time she gets though and she is very busy playing with her (non-electronic) toys the rest of the day and we also get out a lot. She has a couple of electronic toys but she really doesn't care too much for them. She does not watch any regular TV.
ReplyDeleteI tried looking at the apps for Apprends avec Poko, apprends avec Boing au pays des pengouins, and the planete one. Are they not available in the US iTunes store? How did you access them?
A couple of other ones I like are little Pim French and FrenchieTeachie
Hi Dolinda! Little Pim is cute, and I like how the DVDs cover various elements of everyday life. I wish I could find more Tchoupis (without having to purchase the DVDs new from Amazon.ca)--there used to be a lot more of them on YouTube but were taken down last year. (I should check for those again.) We also just learned about L'Ane Trotro, whose YouTube clips are similarly short and cute.
DeleteNo, those don't seem to be available in the US iTunes store. I googled them and found their websites that linked to the French iTunes. This stuff is still new enough to me that I'm not sure what to do next or if it's possible to purchase them from the US. I'll try to check into that soon.
Thank you for your recommendations!
I think i seriously need to get an iPad. it is too amazing what you can do on these devices. i am conscious of screen time though as well, however for Zach, who is 4 and lately only watching Spiderman or Transformers (by the way, i finally found a spiderman video in French on dailymotion: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x4pqbk_spider-man-episode-01-le-lezard-de_shortfilms) -- as long as i can steer him toward the interactive learning and stay strict on no videos (or at least nothing too violent) - i think we are going to get more out of the iPad than we are now on our laptop and PC (and too-tiny smartphone!).
ReplyDeleteI love the questions you pose Sarah about all these devices -- what it will all mean long-term and yet, impossible to resist in the short term - especially with no real reasons being offered as to why not and some obvious benefits. I think we all have some kind of inner compass that tells us when it's been enough already of the screen time and it's time to get off and onto something 3-dimensional - maybe that's all we really need to know in the end?
Bonjour Jennifer! Thanks for your comments--I've added your blog (and Dani's, see above) to my list of resources and look forward to reading more about a fellow non-native francophile with a four-year-old son!
DeleteI like how you put it in your second paragraph--yep, we need to trust ourselves as parents to know what's right for us and our kids (and like Dolinda, also above, to figure out how to cook dinner now and then too)!
It sounds like we're all pretty much on the same page here! We let Alekander (2.5) have about 30-minutes of screen-time in a day (although he doesn't watch every day). I mostly stick to DVDs (so can control the time a bit better than TV) and have just decided that all DVDs will be viewed in German! But the screen-time includes YouTube and now the iPad. The iPad is technically for my husband's work, so I don't really have access to it. So for now it only has two Sesame Street books in English, but I intend to do something about that soon! I feel so technologically inept sometimes - I just don't know what's out there (heck, I don't even text!!). But I guess that'll have to change.
ReplyDeleteI read on someone else's blog (wish I could remember which one!) that her kids only watch in the minority language. So they watch Disney (are also older kids), but don't know them at all in English. Sounds okay to me!
And of course, the other benefit to DVDs is that no commercials interrupt the story! I wish I could find more nonfiction DVDs for children with French soundtracks--the ones we borrow from the library don't seem to have many options. I'd like Griffin to hear all sorts of French, not just plot-and-characters stories.
DeleteWhat language do you and your hubby watch movies in? We have tried to watch American films in French with English subtitles, but that means he has to keep his eyes on the screen (instead of also, say, doing dishes or websurfing), and I see so few movies that I really want to hear the original actors' voices, not dubbed!
Hi again, Sarah, thanks for posting this. I appreciate the conversation and input on the topic.
ReplyDeleteKaya is now 3.5, fluent in both German and English (I share for background info purposes). We've still been following the Academy of Pediatrics advice, and more so, the Simplicity Parenting model that no screen time is optimal until they're 18...though that sounds really rash to me right now and I'm thinking there's a serious piece that I'm missing. Either way, the point they make, that I agree with, is that screen time keeps them away from 'other' time. Please know, you and all other readers, that I fully respect how you choose to raise your children. We all have our opinions and perspectives, and in now way, do I mean to imply that any of you should change your tendencies. Simply wanting to add my piece to the conversation.
While we were in Germany for 3.5 weeks last November, we brought our Samsung Tab (affordable on craigslist, btw) and it was definitely nice at times--on the plane, train, hostel rooms, etc. We definitely limited her exposure...we really only used it to read from at night--though my husband would play a few games with her on it--and on the plane, during the 10 hours. We were cognizant of mostly playing with her, and interacting with her--which is what I've read makes a big difference with their language learning (as far as using it as a learning tool)--but at times, let her fly solo (which yes, was SUPER nice).
At this point, however, we don't let her use it. We will let her take photos with our smart phones, but as for the tab, and screen time in general, we've decided that we're going to keep her off of it until it's not really an option anymore--which it won't be, one day. There are naturally external factors, like the superheroes party you mentioned--and who knows right now where she'll go to school. But for now, while she doesn't know the difference, and we can still easily monitor and reduce her exposure, we're getting by just fine without that factor. Granted, I don't have a baby to nurse, and I DO know it's SUPER nice when we've used it. But at the same time, Kaya sits and reads books by herself, and will create pretend games that she wouldn't be doing if she were depending upon the screen to entertain her. I think that's the biggest factor for me, that latter point: our doctor told me that, as parents of an only child, it's important that we allow her to be bored. That means, from my perspective, giving her opportunities to find ways to entertain herself, from nothing or what is in her surroundings. And, of course, if an Ipad were there, she could certainly find ways to entertain herself. But all in all, I'm just a fan of the old-fashioned activities that involve all the senses, necessary for thorough brain development and growing bodies.
Thanks again, Sarah!
Tamara
Oh, I meant to mention...at the gym, there's a TV where they play movies at times. I request that they encourage Kaya towards other activities, which they are always willing to do. Usually, they say, she does other activities on her own, though at times, she'll sit and watch a bit of the movie. When she asked me what I was holding the other day, and I told her it was a German DVD, she asked if we could watch it. I told her we weren't going to do that right now, and she asked if we could later. Yes, I said, at some point. "Im Flugzeug?" [on the plane?] she asked, excitedly. Yes, I replied, smiling...on the plane.
DeleteThanks for sharing, Tamara. I love that Kaya thinks that German movies are only for watching on the plane (and that she calmly accepts that)!
Delete(Griffin has a similar misconception about the Angry Birds game--he thinks that only some phones and tablets have it, so he doesn't bug me to buy it for ours. This also means that when I have questions to ask at the Apple Store--which he calls "the iPad store"--he happily plays as long as I let him on a demo iPad loaded with Angry Birds.)
What a good point about the importance of letting kids get "bored" so that they learn to entertain themselves when necessary!
That reminds me of a very valuable piece of advice my sister-in-law gave me when I was pregnant with Griffin: make sure that you spend time sitting around reading in front of the baby. That way the kids grow up taking for granted that people read for fun and that reading is a normal, daily activity. How wonderful to feel like I have "permission" to read to myself even with the kids in the room!
I just discovered your blog - great to see what you're doing. Although my wife and I speak little French, we're fortunate enough to have a French immersion school 5 min from my work! Our 5 year old daughter has attended their preschool for 2 yrs now.
ReplyDeleteFor the summer, I would like to find good french tv shows and apps to give her some continued exposure, even though it lacks the interaction of school. I tried your link to reviews of iPad apps (http://babybilingual.blogspot.com/2012/05/who-knew-spelling-could-be-so-cute-and.html) in the message above and got a message saying the page didn't exist.
Keep up the great work!
Hello and thanks! I'm very envious of your daughter's immersion school. Where are you located?
DeleteSome of the YouTube clips in French that Griffin has enjoyed include T'choupi, Alain Le Lait, Charlotte Diamond, Le Roi Lion, and comptines. I'm trying to gather these and other resources here:
http://babybilingual.blogspot.com/p/french-teaching-at-home.html
Speaking of links, thank you for alerting me to the broken link! It's fixed now and you can find my list of French apps here:
http://babybilingual.blogspot.com/2012/05/who-knew-spelling-could-be-so-cute-and_19.html
Our immersion school is L'Ecole Francaise du Maine (http://www.efdm.org, http://lecolefrancaisedumaine.blogspot.com/). It's a wonderful school. Great teachers, all from France, and a fantastic program.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the links!
Oh, it's hard for me to type with all this drool falling on my keyboard! The school indeed looks marvelous, and I am enjoying perusing the blog. I also found the link to the kindergarten blog, which offers links to poems and songs that I wasn't familiar with and phonology exercises: http://gscpefdm.blogspot.com/.
DeleteFunnily enough, our kids had a lot more screen time pre-school... that was when I really needed it, because they wanted my attention 24/7, so the tv was literally my only break, although I usually used the time to do something exciting like get the dinner ready!. Now they're both at school and my daughter has homework and music practice every night, there's just no time anymore. From the minute they get in around 4pm, it's homework – music – dinner – bath – bed, that takes us to 8pm! Thank goodness we have Wednesday afternoons off (it's a French school), where they actually get to play a bit :-)
ReplyDeleteSo what this means is that films/iPad have become a real treat... though not screen-time, because to boost her maths my daughter does one on-screen homework every day on the computer through the Carol Vorderman maths school. Before we started this on-screen maths, it was getting to the point where maths was a dirty word in our house – now it's a special treat! So all hail the magic screen! It's certainly got its uses :-)
That makes a lot of sense! Once children start school, that family time becomes especially precious.
DeleteIt astonishes me when I see statistics on how much TV American children (and families) watch. I want to keep it a special treat for my kids. And I figure that as long as I'm sitting beside Griffin while we play a game in French on the iPad, that counts both as a special treat and quality time with my son!
As I'm not fluent, I feel like I need to use the iPad as a source of content. We got a list of apps from the AF magazine. The trick is to change your iPad to French! Cendrillon is great, Nathan has the wolf game, we love Trotro on YouTube and used to really like Barbapapa, but they seem to have been pulled. it's a shame because their gentle, hippie attitude was a good counter to that bad donkey! (And I can a tally follow their dialogue with some degree of success. )
ReplyDeleteDo you know if that list from the AF available online somewhere?
DeleteI'll have to look for Barbapapa on YouTube. Griffin really enjoys the short T'choupi videos there, but they also are periodically removed. i think some T'choupi apps exist too--need to check for those!