On 28 September 2007, the Albany Democrat-Herald ran an article on the developing methods of baby sign language.
To sum up the article, it said that babies at various childcare agencies are being taught to sign, beginning when they are about six months old (before they learn how to speak), so that they can communicate their wants to childcare providers and are thus less likely to cry. Although some people worried that by teaching sign language to infants they would slow down the infants’ development of verbal skills, one study showed that learning sign language actually helps infants to develop verbal language sooner and can even cause a slight boost in their IQs.
I thought baby sign language sounded interesting, so I Googled it to find out more. Apparently there is a whole baby-signing industry. Companies sell instructional DVDs and books, and there is even an online baby-signing dictionary with video links for various words.
Although the use of sign language may cause an infant to develop verbal skills earlier, http://baby.families.com/blog/baby-sign-language-good-or-bad rightly points out that it’s also necessary for the parents to speak to their babies while they sign if the babies are to progress with their development of verbal skills. The writer on this site is inclined to regard baby sign language as a “baby bandwagon” and insists that the most important thing a parent can do to help his or her child’s development is to speak to that child frequently, whether with sign language or not. However, “bandwagon” or not, sign language clearly helps infants to communicate their wants and thus reduces the number of tantrums they have.
According to the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis from the
At http://www.babies-and-sign-language.com/baby-sign-benefits.html, I found the following list of perceived benefits of baby sign language:
- Promotes the development of language skills
- Reinforces language skills already developed
- Reduces frustration at not being able to express needs
- Increase [sic] speed of spatial reasoning development
- Develops understanding of language for communication of emotions
- Creates feelings of satisfaction and accomplishment
- May increase IQ
- Increases creative thinking
- Teaches a 2nd language that is formally recognized (ASL)
- Reduces unexplainable emotional outbursts
- Increases early literacy skills
- Teaches baby how to start (and participate in) a conversation
If all this is true, it’s a wonder more people don’t teach their children to sign. Perhaps this is because many parents are afraid that signing would be detrimental to their children’s verbal skills development, or perhaps because baby-signing remains as of yet a widely unknown method.
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On a wholly unrelated note, I also thought that the September 25 NPR report about Congressman José Serrano learning to speak English by listening to Sinatra was interesting because I used a similar method when I taught myself French. (I instead listened to Phantom of the Opera.) Listening to music is a wonderful way to learn a new language, not only because singers often enunciate their words very carefully, but also because songs can be listened to over and over again without becoming exceedingly boring, and because the tonality of music is a wonderful mnemonic aid. I highly recommend the use of music to anyone taking up a new language.
2 comments:
Great post! Are the babies being taught a fully grammatical sign language like ASL (american sign language) or just simple signs like those taught to chimps and other great apes? Do you think this is significant?
Also, very intriguing suggestion regarding music as a language learning tool. One of the other blogs discusses a university that is using dubbed films to teach language. You mention a few aspects of music that might make it a good learning device, but what other features of music and film can you think of that might make these good additions to traditional language learning techniques?
(In response to Steve)
As far as I can tell, some of the babies are being taught actual ASL while others are being taught a simplified version of signing. The signs used vary from one childcare center to another. Personally, I think they should teach all the babies ASL rather than random signs because then they would grow up bilingual.
In addition to the wonderful articulation of words found in its songs, I found Phantom of the Opera dubbed in French to be a wonderful language learning tool because of the context provided by the accompanying video. I have found that it is far easier to learn new vocabulary with a context rather than by simply trying to memorize words off a list.
Also, I watched the movie with French subtitles so that I had an added visual component to accompany the audio component. Whenever I came to a word I didn't know, I looked it up in an online dictionary, thus adding a writing component to help memorize the spellings of new words. By singing the songs myself after I had learned them, I was able to begin practicing my own pronunciation in the same overly enunciated speech as the singers in the movie. Because the music and movie were entertaining I enjoyed the learning far more than I would have if I had simply tried memorizing grammar and vocabulary lists.
In essence, using films (especially musicals) with subtitles to learn foreign languages is effective not solely because it is entertaining but also because it incorporates all aspects of learning a new language: listening comprehension, reading, writing, and speaking. The main problem I came across when using this method is that it gave me little opportunity to come up with my own sentences. When I finally did join a French class (after having taught myself with films for half a year) I found that for the first couple weeks I really struggled trying to create my own sentences even though I could understand everything that everyone else was saying. Some people may not believe that it is not possible to understand a language without being able to speak it, but I know with certainty that by using film to study, I learned comprehension long before I learned to create my own sentences.
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