Cartoon channels and kids
It is very unusual to see that kids do not love cartoons. If we conduct a survey among the kids, especially of 3-5 age group, we will find that most of them love to watch cartoons which they start watching at an early age and the language of these cartoons is mostly English. However, gradually they begin to understand the language, though not everything, and also the context. Even they can explain to us what is happening. Nowadays English learning is a must for all. So if our pre-school going or primary school going kids learn a bit of English from watching the cartoons, that will be a blessing for us because apart from entertaining the kids the cartoon channels are helping them to learn something new.
The famous cartoon channels in Bangladesh are Cartoon Network, Nick etc. And kids learn some fragments or even some full sentences from watching those cartoons. Arik is my brother-in-law's only son who hardly allows anyone to watch any other channels. He is six years old and is a student of class 1 in Milestone Bangla medium school. He started watching cartoons when he was only three and he still cannot speak Bangla flawlessly. However, the way he sometimes speaks a smattering of English really surprises me. In our home no one speaks with him in English, so he only depends on schoolbooks though sometimes contents of her English books are not suitable for his age level, for example, the word “astronaut” (a word in one of his English books) is a little bit difficult for kids. Since every time kids are learning new words, we need to explain everything to them and choose such things which can create fun as well.
In cartoon channels kids not only listen to the word s but also watch the performance which makes their learning easier. Listening is an essential part of language learning and watching cartoon has a good effect on the pronunciation of the kids because they unconsciously learn correct pronunciation. There is nothing to be imposed, rather the whole process is natural and many linguists think that natural learning is the best learning.
Total physical response (TPR) is a good way to teach English language to the kids.
Finally, I would like to suggest that the parents in our country bear one thing in mind that everything has positive and negative sides, since some kids might only watch it for the sake of entertainment. So, it is the duty of the parents to guide them properly. In addition, if it is possible, parents should sit with them when their kids watch cartoons because they will ask a lot of questions out of amusement and curiosity, especially when they have language difficulty.
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