Teacher Discussion Forums

This young girl, Wendy Vo, can speak 11 languages. A mixture of diverse languages too. Prepare to feel very depressed - here's the proof.

http://kr.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZOPI7DzfUY

and part two with French
http://kr.youtube.com/watch?v=DKB-W_GLZ ... re=related

part three with Russian and Chinese
http://kr.youtube.com/watch?v=UV03HMcUq ... re=related

I don't think her Chinese (or Arabic?) seems all that hot, but the pronunciation is good for Chinese.
I hope the Korean address works, if not you can look her up on you tube.

Anyway, this "polyglot" will cheer you up
http://kr.youtube.com/watch?v=IFV1Pc5fj ... re=related

The last little boy doesn't surprise me at all. He has memorized a salespitch. I have run across this kind of person in every country I have visited. Money talks!

Yes, the latter kid is just a joker. How about Wendy Vo though? Is there something to learn from people like her, or should we just put them in a box that says genius/freak and worry about the education of normal people?

Of course it would be interesting to hear how she learned all the languages and what capabilities her parents had in language. I think we will see more and more children like this in the future.

i am glad that she enjoys learning languages and being in a video. It is good that she has such poise at 8 years old.

However, just down the list there is a video saying, "Don't hate me because I am a child prodigy." There are always two sides (at least) in cases like these. Are the parents pushing her and taking away her childhood or is she choosing to do the work required to learn? For one thing, she has to sit fairly still and read and it seems she likes the dancing parts the best.

I wish her the best use of her many talents.

I don't imagine that we will ever get anyone like this in our classes though because they do so well and don't need classes.

I think that I might show this video to students to provoke a discussion on whether language learning is just a talent to be nurtured and not available to everyone or anyone can learn with enough dedication.