The Secret? Active Learning With Cartoons
Whatever the reasons that pushed you to move abroad, you are adapting your identity to the country you now live in. And so do your spouse and your children. When you first moved, they resembled more the kids you used to see playing around in your home country. Now that they have been living in a different environment for quite some time, you start noticing the many differences. Even clearer if they were born in that new country. Nothing wrong with them making friends with other local children or learning a new language. Rather, that’s the dream situation of every expat parent. Still, you start worrying that they will lose your language and cultural background.
First, don’t beat yourself up for thinking this. It’s actually one of the main concerns of expats with kids living abroad. A part of you wants them not to suffer from homesickness and to gain even deeper knowledge of that language and culture. You can’t stop but to feel thrilled at the doors an additional language will open for them in their future professional and personal life. And yet, you talk to them in your native language and they do indeed understand. But prefer to reply to you in the language they use more often, which is coincidentally not your spouse’s or yours.
Praise your children’s efforts:
Your first reaction might be to get upset or mad at your children. Or to become hostile towards every hint of language, culture, or people you meet in that country. They are taking away your children’s identity, aren’t they? Luckily, that’s not the case. On the contrary, you should praise your kids for putting the efforts to learn and to practice that additional language, especially if they started since when they were young. Most pupils as young as 3 are ready to engage in the process of learning a new language. They can benefit from this with better critical thinking skills, creativity, and mental flexibility. Studies have as well shown that children learning a foreign language perform much better than non-foreign language peers in verbal and math standardized tests. That’s why learning a new language is a full cognitive activity and not just a linguistic one.
Engage them in learning:
Think back to your first approach to a new foreign language. All those unfamiliar sounds, a trillion of unknown words, the fear that your memory will not be strong enough to let all that knowledge permeate into your brain. And there’s more than a reason why taking up language classes or buying tons of grammar textbooks usually don’t work as well as other methods. Listening to a native speaking in a class full of sleepy students or doing mindless reading of a bunch of grammar rules is what can be called “passive learning”. You think you’re learning, but you actually aren’t. Your brain is just adapting itself to the situation at hand. You are indeed reading or listening to the explanation of radicals in Chinese characters. It’s just that your mind is in “autopilot mode”. You act that way because of pre-existing habits, and you are not really absorbing that much information. The opposite scenario is when you are having fun. You absorb the most of a language when you are listening to a song you love in that language or watch that new blockbuster movie with subtitles. It is fun and learning becomes incidental. The same logic can apply to your kids and how you can motivate them to keep contact with your native language.
That one so precious tool at hand:
Cartoons are an excellent tool to expose your kids more to your native language. However, they won’t become masters at that language simply by spending hours watching the same cartoon over and over again. They still need your help to turn that activity from a passive learning experience to an effective language immersion. So, well, sitting your kids in front of the TV or a computer screen for 2 hours won’t do the job ok. If it was that easy, every child in the world would become bilingual before learning how to walk properly and such an article wouldn’t be needed at all. Children are great at following the story by watching the images in a cartoon or movie. But if they still are not at a native-speaker level, they will just ignore the language and focus on the facial expressions of the protagonists instead. Despite all of this, cartons are still an enjoyable language resource for children, especially because younger ones wouldn’t mind watching the same clip over and over.
How to use cartoons in your favor:
- Open a YouTube playlist or switch on the TV on a cartoon in your native language;
- Get comfy for watching it with your kids;
- Use your higher understanding of the language to pinpoint random words and expressions;
- Ask them questions to test their listening skills and overall comprehension;
- Watch the same clip at least once more to help your children remember the new words through repetition;
- Play with the new vocabulary after the cartoon session has ended. You can use post-its, flashcards, or similar methods to sediment the new words in your kids’ memory;
The one cartoon you can’t miss:
All the knowledge shared in the paragraphs above can be applied to children who need to raise their level of proficiency and to those whose parents want them to learn a new language from scratch. Regardless of what situation you belong to, Mandarin is the third world’s most powerful language of 2018, according to an INSEAD report. That’s only after English and French. It’s a fact that children who are familiar with the language that now dominates the international business world will have an incredible competitive advantage to those who aren’t. If you are looking for a fun cartoon which can be relatable for your kids while still bringing that something new, we have the right option for you. It’s called “Happy Friends”, also known as “Happy Heroes”. It’s a Chinese cartoon from the same author of “Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf”. The protagonists are 5 cute superheroes who fight to defend their planet from the invasion of aliens. All their Chinese names are made with an adjective representing their personality and all of them end with “xin” – the Chinese character for “heart”. And that’s how your kids will become familiar with the adventures of the lively Happy Superman, the lovely Sweet Superwoman, the strong Smart Superman, the cold Cool Superman, and the forgetful Careless Superman. What makes this cartoon that special? It’s the first superhero cartoon ever released in China and has conquered the hearts of fans of all ages since 2010. So, what more could you be asking for? Fun time to strengthen the bond with your kids while at the same time improving their understanding and enriching their vocabulary in that target language. That’s how good and easy as it gets.
