English cartoons is the Jumpstart to English, Not the Finish Line.
These days, kids are soaking up English like little sponges from the world around them - TV, music, brands, English jargon in everyday discourse etc,. It's become an unavoidable part of their everyday lives.Not once, many parents declare to me, with a great amazement, that their young children (2 years old and above) are picking up phrases and vocabulary from their favorite English cartoons and shows. Well, in my childhood, which was about 30 years ago, I hardly remember any cartoons in English. Back then, English exposure was very limited. There was one or two channels that broadcasted children's cartoons in Hebrew. So, compared to the older generation, it is clear that this generation is much more exposed to English. Thus, for our children, acquiring English seems to be a piece of cake since they are surrounded by English - both spoken and written - from a very young age.
I can see it with my own daughters, who recite ads thanks to that constant incidental exposure between videos and podcasts- a very intuitive way of learning.
So, how do children acquire English through TV watching? Is it good or bad? Is it worth the screentime exposure? What benefits do they gain from it? Is it enough to acquire the language?
Aside from the fact that screentime can harm the eyes and brain, prevent social interaction and physical activities, it has some benefits - exposure to English. Children do a great job acquiring English subconsciously through TV watching, i.e., they develop different fundamental language skills, such as listening comprehension, phonological awareness, word order, comprehension, intonation, humor, sarcasm, fluency, developing sensitivity and awareness to different pronunciations and accents, etc. But is that all we need in order to acquire a language? The answer is 'No'.
Simply being an English sponge is not enough for true fluency. Growth of the child's understanding, sound differentiation, word meaning, and vocabulary expansion seems to serve only a small portion of the initial part of language acquisition since it doesn't help the child engage in speaking, articulating, and expressing. The child is lacking practical skills of any spontaneous conversation; he is not practicing the physical production of sounds and blended sounds nor sentence building, which requires thinking and output practice. These skills are crucial to convey messages.
So as amazing as the English immersion is for today's young minds, TV can only be one part of their language journey, not the entire solution. Parents, we need to transform our children from great listeners into great communicators too.
Thus, TV can be an additional source in the process of language acquisition but not the main and only source, simply because it doesn't engage the child in the broad skills that a language requires, such as language production practice.
How? By regularly engaging them in dialogue around what they're watching. Asking questions to spark conversations. Encouraging them to speak up and practice expressing themselves. Looking into extracurriculars like English centers that build those crucial productive skills and gets the child to interact with live English.
Help your child become a confident English user.