Job Discussion Forums

cornishmuppet · Joined: 27 Mar 2004 Posts: 642 Location: Nagano, Japan

At my school there is a babies class where I sit and wave toy animals about while a couple of one year olds writhe about on the floor, completely unaware of my existence. The mothers speak easily enough English to 'teach' them anything I can. I've been here a year and already feel like I'm selling my soul, but this has got me totally mystified. I just can't understand what the point of putting babies through English lessons is.

I'd be interested if anyone can actually give me a decent reason why these classes even exist, for any reason rather than to take money off families who clearly have far too much.

I won't say anything against my school, because at the end of the day its a business, as is every other eikawa out there, and we have far less baby 'students' than most schools I know, but my issue is with the existence of these classes at all.

I for one think its a bit of joke, really.

PAULH · Joined: 28 Jan 2003 Posts: 4672 Location: Western Japan

Lindsay · Joined: 06 Apr 2004 Posts: 29 Location: kitakyushu, japan

I recently watched a BBC documentry about language and the brain. Children as young as one can discern a difference in language. They may not speak it or be obvious in their response to it, but this study showed differences in brain activity when a different language was spoken. According to this study when children are as young as two, it is the easiest time for them to learn another language.

I taught a class of one and two year olds. I agree it definitely felt like I had no self awareness while teaching the class. We sang lots of songs with actions (the mothers were also in the classroom) and threw around lots of fluffy bright coloured objects and said the colours as we threw and caught them. The children responded very well and enjoyed the class.

Then these children moved on to a two year old class where another teacher taught them the alphabet, days of the week, colours, and general greetings. These children were amazing!

So, even though it seems like you are not turning a lot of results, these children may be benefiting from your class!

madeira · Joined: 13 Jun 2004 Posts: 182 Location: Oppama

Be happy that your school doesn't have "Talking to the Bump" classes.

Even if pre-born babies can learn that way, it still feels ridiculous to do it!

bearcat · Joined: 08 May 2004 Posts: 367

bearcat · Joined: 08 May 2004 Posts: 367

guest of Japan · Joined: 28 Feb 2003 Posts: 1601 Location: Japan

I do a private lesson once a week with a five year old girl and her two and a half year old sister. I initually took the job for only the five year old. However, the parents decided they want the two and a half year old to take part too, for extra money of course.

I told the parents that I really didn't think it would be very successful. So far I am right in that opinion. The five year old is moving along quite nicely, there is almost no discernable difference in the two year old. I tend to focus my lesson on the five year old and just keep the other girl as active as possible. The main reason I teach the younger daughter is just so she doesn't feel left out when the older daughter has class. It is a bit detrimental to my lessons with the older daughter, and causes me a bit of anxiety in lesson planning and carry out.

Henry_Cowell · Joined: 27 May 2005 Posts: 3352 Location: Berkeley

bshabu · Joined: 03 Apr 2003 Posts: 200 Location: Kumagaya

Also, babies can hear all sounds since birth. After time they focus on their parents language(or the languages that are the most dominate) and lose the ability to distiguish some sounds. I saw a documentary on how babies could hear, in this case, the two "da" sounds of Hindi and reconized that they were two sounds. It was quite amazing. But when they brought they kid back a year later, the kid lost that ability.

pnksweater · Joined: 24 Mar 2005 Posts: 173 Location: Tokyo, Japan

When I taught baby class at my ekaiwa the kid was so young he didn't even speak Japanese. But low and behold, six months later he was speaking Japanese and English. Not fluently of course, but the little bits and pieces every baby starts out with.

Something else about early language learing: when we are born our brain has the ablilty to process all sounds the human vocal tract can make. Once we lock onto the surrounding language and figure out those sounds our brain begins to filter out uncessary sounds. So when we grow to adulthood most of us simply can't differentiate some of the sounds of foreign languages. Some people beleive that exposing babies and young children to the sounds of foreign languages can aid them in learning a second language later in life.

But I agree with the above posters- baby class is mostly about the mom.

JimDunlop2 · Joined: 31 Jan 2003 Posts: 2286 Location: Japan

moot point · Joined: 22 Feb 2005 Posts: 441

Sherri · Posted: Sat Jul 23, 2005 7:08 pm Post subject:

My son who is turning 2 at the end of this week, can identify colors, can certainly do general greetings (in E and J). And he can say the alphabet. But when he says the alphabet it is the alphabet song, so I think it is more just a matter of reciting memorized sounds--he doesn't really get what the alphabet means. Most 2-year-olds are pretty good at mimicking.

As for the original question, as anyone who has been the primary caregiver of a baby or toddler knows... you will do ANYTHING to get out of the house and meet other people and do something different. It's for the mothers (or dads).
Sherri

bshabu · Joined: 03 Apr 2003 Posts: 200 Location: Kumagaya

guest of Japan · Joined: 28 Feb 2003 Posts: 1601 Location: Japan

Just a quick update on my two and a half year old student. It seems that English lessons are worthwhile for her. When I taught her yesterday she was actually producing spoken English. I was more than a little surprised.