Anyone know any bilingual tv shows DVDs (French/English)?

[kissdelphine]

Hi,

I've just joined mumsnet and had a quick look at some of the threads on bilingualism. If anyone knows of any bilingual tv shows or DVDs could you give me a shout. I've found lots of books, games, dvds, music etc for teaching either preschool French or English.

I can't seem to find anything that teaches the two languages together. I know there is the French version of 'Dora the Explorer' which teaches a little English. Are there any programmes which have equal amounts of French and English in the programme?

The reason I'm asking here is firstly to see if anyone has heard of any such programmes that I might be able to use for my children.

And secondly, if these programmes don't exist yet I am curious to see if anyone would like them to exist!

The reason I ask is that we are thinking of creating a fun series for YouTube initially, for bilingual children (1-6 year olds). It will be filmed in a home-made studio, with hand-puppets and stop motion animation and various video special effects and music. As we are very busy with the kids and work it will just be a little project for fun!

We have just started a blog and website at:

www.frenchnative.com

Our aim is to help parents like ourselves, who want to raise their children in a bilingual home.

So, as bilingual parents yourself, would you find it useful to use a resource like this to help encourage your kids learn both languages effectively? It will be FREE of course.

We like the idea of using songs, games, videos, dance....basically as many fun interactive ways of learning as possible!

Also if anyone is interested in this project and lives in the Brighton area, feel free to write back if you want to get involved.

Here are are ideas so far:
We have some semi-pro gear like HD video and various software (inc dragon stop motion, adobe after effects, paintshop and soundbooth). The stop motion animation pieces will be small (under 1 min).We'll also be writing and recording our own songs and music (2-3 mins per song). There will be 2 main puppets, one French, one English. Some episodes will be partly shot on location, e.g. the park, the farm, the beach, drusillas zoo etc. We will use a lot of green screen compositing and digital effects to make more exciting interactive settings for the puppets.

As we'll be doing this as a labour of love in our free time it will probably take at least a year before it's up and running on YouTube. Lets see what happens?

First of all I would like to hear any ideas and comments from you parents out there?

Cheers

Delphine and Rowan

Personally it's not something I would go for because there are perfectly good French and perfectly good English shows which are more beneficial for a child being raised bilingual IMO. But in a non-bilingual household it could be an interesting possibility.

Fair enough. That could be why no-one has made a bilingual show before to my knowledge. On the other hand if no-one has tried it, how would anyone know if it would be beneficial for bilingual kids or not? mmmmmmm anyway glad to get such a quick response. Interested to hear more!

Cheers

I agree with frakkinup. I prefer there to be a clear distinction between the languages for younger ones, to prevent any language mixing. And my older DDs find it distracting. They will happily watch a DVD in French then watch it again in English, but if they have started it in French then it finishes in French.

Thats also a worthwhile point. Its good to hear from parents with older kids, who have been through the ropes. If someone talks to your child in English you would like them to reply in English. If they see charaters on TV having a conversation in 2 separate languages they might think it is normal and start doing the same. We are both new parents (our daughter's 3 mths and our son has just turned 2yrs), so we have only seen the beginning stage of how a child learns to talk.

We came up with the idea for the show because we saw how quickly a young child can realise that there are 2 different words in each language for the same object. It's amazing! We're both really happy and suprised! He even makes the distinction of which words to use with mum or dad. Of course every parent thinks their kid is the bees knees, who wouldn't! So we thought if kids associate a different language with a different parent....Then why not a different tv character for a different language!

Maybe to avoid confusion, you could separate the show into small english chunks then small french chunks? I can see how children might be confused if one character is saying something in French and the other replies in English, it would be a bit weird!

Thank you both for replying, as you can see I still like the idea of a bilingal show, it's a matter of experimenting and seeing what works! No doubt we will be a lot wiser into these matters as our 2 get older and we watch them learn more!

Thanks again [smaile] still happy to hear more though!

I have to say I don't think mixing 2 languages in the same situation is a good method of learning either language, even if you have puppets speaking different languages.

We have quite q few bilingual books at home from BSmall publishers, even these come in for criticism from our children as they dislike some of the translations and argue the English and French are not the same, so I don't think they'd like bilingual movies at all.

mmmm thats 3 thumbs down so far. Not looking good. But thank you for the honest opinions. We need constructive criticism, which is helpful for developing our ideas. I guess people know what works for them and stick to it.

We have taught both our languages simultaneously and found it to work well. Our friends who also raise their children bilingually, but in other language pairs, also use this simultaneous method. In other words each parent always uses their native tongue, even when they are together with the child. The children still hear English all around them and when the parents talk amongst themselves.

I kind of took it for granted that this was an effective way to teach. I can't say what is right for us is right for anyone else, but there must be lots of other mixed couples like us who use simultaneous bilingualism?

When we play with our son all together he understands and talks to both of us, even if we are both speaking our native tongues. Do other couples find this also works? I thought we could simply re-create the games and songs we sing together onto video and other French/English kids might like it?

Time to experiment I guess? Hopefully, when the first video is up and running on TouTube we will know whether to quit or carry on with our silly idea! Its not like we are losing anything by trying and hope to have some fun making it in the process.....Watch this space....even if it takes a few months...hahaha

Just a quick reply to 'natation' about those bilingual books. The translations are often inaccurate and I understand you feel put off other bilingual resources because of that. If your kids realise this also I don't blame them for not liking any other mixed language material.

That is precisely why someone needs to investigate the possibilty of improving bilingual learning materials. Has anyone ever tried some that actually work? Instead of focussing on the ones that don't. Either there are some great books, songs or dvds waiting to be discovered out there or someone needs to make some! Someone with more money and time than us!

I don't think mixing languages should be downcast if done properly. I.e. if the child knows how to separate the 2 languages according to whom he/she is communicating with and can understand simultaneous conversations bilingually then surely that is great! It certainly doesn't harm or slow down language development. If you follow some of the research available on simultaneous bilingualism you might agree.

No doubt there is tonnes of debate on this subject, from what I have read on other posts. I don't feel especially strongly about the way we teach our children, it just seems to make sense and work well for us. I don't want to criticise anyone elses opinions. All we want to do is make some fun, entertaining education for the other bilingual kids out there!

Well its been a productive first day on mumsnet, luckily I've had the day off to do this research...Thank you Delphine

See ya later,

Rowan

I don't have anything against simultaneous exposure - it's the way OPOL works after all - but the thing is I've often found children get annoyed when it's supposed to be the same and isn't. When adults talk they rarely repeat each other verbatim. They pick up, develop, rephrase, remphasise but seldom repeat unless it's a direct instruction, which different languages/cultures have different ways of phrasing anyway. That's why bilingual books often aren't that great when they get to bring more complex stories - a lot depends on the translation from one target language or the other into mentalese and, whilst this can be very interesting when one has an advanced knowledge of grammar in both languages and can look past it, simply using a slightly different construction can evoke very different images, especially for a child.

Whilst young children are surprisingly pliable linguistically they can be very resistant. It's very difficult to change the language a child uses to a friend in a social setting from quite a young age for example. Frenchfancy's children aren't uncommon in wanting to start/finish a DVD in one language.

I'd probably go as far as saying I actively wouldn't want bilingual resources because children speaking franglais is one of my absolute pet hates. Language mixing within a resource is fundamentally different to 2 different language resources being used simultaneously. If you have a conversation it should, within their capabilities, be within the one language to the one parent and the other to the other, regardless of whether both parents are bilingual or not and I'd extend that to TV, DVDs etc. I personally have nothing against the parents using the other language instead of their mother tongue to a child where the situation requires. For example if we're at my PILs then the family language is French. If I were to address my child directly 'sit up straight' or 'wipe your mouth' then that would be in English but if I were responding to a point they'd made about something within the context of the conversation in French that would be in French, sticking to my personal rule that context can over-rule a language for a person.

However that's my personal view - it doesn't mean it's right, it's just why I wouldn't go for a bilingual resource no matter how fantastic it was because I personally prefer to keep the languages separated either by person or by context. Dora the Explorer gets on my nerves introducing the odd Spanish word randomly and not even a phrase or useful chunk of interaction. I wouldn't use that to teach or support learning Spanish. Even if there were long stretches in one language or the other how would you decide which language was dominant? Would it be marketed at children being brought up bilingual or aspirational parents? Because IMO to mimic being brought up bilingual in most situations you'd have a puppet speaking one language and a puppet speaking the other, with very careful scripting. But that doesn't reflect reality half the time anyway because there are children who are brought up on a home language/community language basis and it's hard for children to tune into that setup if it's not associated with specific people or context from the start. Once language is well-established then you can be more flexible IMO but by then habits are often ingrained.

Agree with the majority - I want my children to have clearly separated resources in their two languages (also French and English.) There is a big difference between watching the same programme twice, once in French and once in English - or even buying the French version of something that has already proved popular in English - and actually mixing the two languages, which would be anathema to me as an OPOL parent.

If I wanted something that mixed the two I'd work through the kid's pack from Cafe Rouge ...

You may be asking the wrong people tbh - I imagine this sort of thing would go down a storm in families that are NOT bilingual. Have you tried posting in "pre-school education" etc?

I'm with the rest on this one. Just don't see the point. Have never felt there is a lack of resources or that this one would fill any perceived gap. But as MIFLAW says, it could be that this type of resource would suit a different type of family; one that is trying to introduce bilingualism- or even simply teach a language- at a later stage.

Hello mumsnetters!

Thank you all for reponding so well to the query about bilingual resources. I'm glad to find this forum and see it is very active. At least I won't spend any more time looking for educational materials that are designed specifically for bilingual kids. If what most of you say is true, its easier and better to just stick to using the DVDs, books and games that we already have in our separate languages.

We might still make a few YouTube clips though, just for a laugh! They probably won't get beyond 10 views though! hehe And don't worry I won't bother wasting my time making them for bilingual kids. Just for any kid and big kids like us Dads!

The fun and enjoyment is in creating them and letting our imagination run riot! Plus I love reading people's comments, especially the rude ones!!

Thanks for the advice...take care

Cheers,

Rowan

Good luck Rowan, and don't give up - I am sure that there is a demand out there for what you are proposing. I just don't think it's among what I would call the "genuine" bilingual community. You're really looking at the same market as something like La Jolie Ronde - perhpas they would even consider endorsing your materials further down the line?

I also think that HopeForTheBest raises a very interesting point. To be honest, for bilingual kids, any materials AT ALL are really only "nice to haves" from a linguistic point of view, except in expanding vocab in areas where the parents have no real interest (and that sounds a lot more specialist than what you are proposing.) What they DO add, though - and this is the point she made that I really like - is CULTURAL input. It's all very well my child knowing the French for everything Noddy says and does; if she calls him Noddy instead of Oui-Oui, she is going to get blank looks from a French child growing up in France and the conversation will be a non-starter. So what I look for in materials is much more to do with authenticity and shared experience than with "teaching" the language.

There was one French/English children's programme and it was called Telly Tots. It had 3 protgonists, 2 speaking English and one French. You can still find it on tape at school fetes and the like -perhaps try eBay? so you can see what's been done before.

Yes I think I remember telly tots, it must have been at least 15 years ago. Was it the one with 3 little puppet kids living on a barge or something? Or was that rosie and jim? I was a teenager at the time, so only watched it sometimes with my little sister. I remember it being for very young kids, as I wasn't interested in bilingualism then I can't remember if it would be useful or not. Will have a look on YouTube! Binned out VHS a long time ago, unfortunately!

I appologise about mentioning our website on this thread. I guess I didn't read the rules about putting links on this forum. Just wanted to help those of you who were interested in finding some useful resources. Won't do it again, sorry. Hope the administrator doesn't remove the whole thread!

Yes, it was coming to the tail end of its broadcast life about a decade ago: it was three puppet-like toddlers living together (not a barge though). Happy hunting!

Yeeeyy!! I found it!

I can't believe I forgot about this show. Well done 'onimolap' thank you so much for remembering and mentioning it!

It's called "TOT'S TV", I typed it in google and YouTube and got lot's of good results.
Wikipedia said it was first broadcast in 1993, so that explains why I vaguely remember it. I was doing my GCSE's back then.

Anyway, I watched a few episodes on YouTube and actually it's quite good. I would say that my son would like it (will see tomorrow?)and the little snippets of French are woven into the show very well. I don't think the producers were aiming to make the show for bilingual children, but I think it would work well for both bilingual and monolingual kids (who would learn some basic French phrases and vocab).

As we are moving back to France permanently in August, I was on the look out for things like this and of course just plain English DVDs etc to take with us. They sell a few DVDs of this show on Amazon luckily .

By the way, I'm not advertising if I mention YouTube or Amazon!

Thank you so much 'onimolap' you've not only proven to me that there have been some mixed language shows, you've also inspired me to perhaps give it a shot myself at some point in the future (on an amateur level).

Cheers