Muzzy Language Courses for Children

[Cyn]

Hello

Has anyone had any experience with the BBC Muzzy Language Courses? Does it work? are children interested? I would love to hear about your experience.
Thanks Cyn

KS - I think your theoy might have some basis or at least it excuses my terrible grasp of any language, as I also can never remember the words to songs no matter how often I have heard them! Meanwhile my DH who still can't remember after 18 months which 3 days of the week that I work can remember every word to every song and picks up languages with ease in every country that we have lived! I never get pass the hello / thank you stage!!!

No! Fairly good with languages, love crosswords, pretty good with maths, pretty low to middling at quite a few other life skills.

If ks's theory holds true then you have never had a lucid conversation with a non-native english speaker who is any good at maths.

KS- to my embarrassment I do remember song lyrics easily, also poetry. What's your theory????

Going back to the Muzzy courses..I taught English to primary school children in France and I found Muzzy to be really useful. Even if they couldn't understand every word they got the jist with the pictures and every child picked up something. By the end of a year with 3x 40 min sessions a week they could all talk about themselves, sing some songs in English and understand loads!
I was really saddened by previous comments saying it's not worth learning a language because English is so international. While that is true, think about all the other things you get from language learning, insights into different culture, food, music and ways of life.
I'm a language teacher ( currently living in Germany ) and if you can get kids interested in all the other things that go with foreign languages they are really keen to learn!!!

As for acheiving native speaker level, I don't think it matters if you have an accent, after all languages are about communication, not being perfect and accents can be really sexy, can't they??!

Can anyone tell me what the french Muzzy videos are actually called, or where I can get hold of them? I tried Amazon, Borders, Waterstones, Virgin (!), and WHS ...?

Not sure if this is the where you order from (can't find those details at the moment...) but the company I got mine form is called Early Advantage UK Ltd
I have the following address for them:
Communications Centre,
Par Moor Road,
Cornwall,
PL24 2SQ.

"speed phone" 0800 138 3210

Hope this helps...

Hi

Really interesting to see all the different view points. I live in Switzerland where they speak swiss german, but write in high german at school. Therefore I am debating whether having my daughter of 3 looking and learning from the Muzzy videos will add to her german vocab (though not swiss german) or confuse the swiss german she is picking up from a playgroup she attends. This is a truly international community here and I am truly in awe of the children I meet who have parents from differnt countries speaking two different languages at home and then going to school with a third. I have heard that the younger children hear different sounds then helps them latter in life to learn a language if they want. It is for this reason the Dutch are so good at languages as they have many more different 'sounds' in their language.

Also just to confirm the address given below for ordering Muzzy is correct. It is the one I have on the flyer I received.

I am also hoping to learn some german too!!

Cyn, sounds like a good idea. We're in a multi lingual situation aswell. Dh is Norwegian and we're living in Sweden (and access Danish aswell). The three languages are strongly related and, for the most part, reinforce each other.

Are there any programmes that your ds likes to watch in your home language that you could get in High Deutsch? Ds, 20 months and enjoying using his words, is pretty content with Teletubbies and the like, in whichever language and hasn't show a preference. As he loves NouNou et al, his interest is caught and he gets the language as an added aside. It might seem more effortless exposure.

We started watching teletubbies in Swedish and were a bit miffed to discover that the tubbies had a sex when we started seeing it in English.

Let us know how you and dd get on.

Hi cyn - I'm also in German speaking-Switzerland. May I ask a couple of questions?

Is your family all English-speaking, or do the kids hear German spoken at home as well as in the playgroup.

How old is dd & how long has she been going to playgroup?

Has she picked up any (Swiss) German yet?

What sort of playgroup have you found - all the ones I've seen so far are mixed-age 'supervised' play. I'm not so keen on my ds rubbing shoulders with 5 & 6 year olds all chucked into the same room with no structured activities. The only ones I've found which segregate ages AND do activities with the kids are English speaking!

Have you gone ahead and got the Muzzy course. If so, - any good?

Just to let people know that the Muzzy website is:
www.early-advantage.com

.

Why are you bumping these threads Cod?
Ds2 likes Salut Serge It's not a course as such, but it's a fun programme to watch with loads of French in it.

DS1 used to like it, but has outgrown it now.