Changes / Medienwandel

Numerous factors are making it increasingly difficult to post daily updates on L2 media, so I'm going to change "Media today #___" to "Media update #___" and reduce these posts to every few days.

Also, I will no longer be recording certain things like "Let's Play Minecraft" videos, because during his tablet time J accesses these himself now from the Youtube "history" function and it would be very difficult and time consuming to trace and document his record. 

Since we're monitoring him somewhat less, I am not unconcerned about him stumbling across videos with inappropriate content among the "suggested videos" that appear on the right side of the screen, but at this point he seems to be sticking to the videos of his favorite players as they move through their various series. A couple of these players (like SparkofPhoenix for example) do use light profanity, but as I've explained before, this is not necessarily a bad thing, since profanity is a part of any living language, and anyway J would be exposed to it were he growing up in a German-speaking country. However, we are trying to pay attention that he not come across anything too horrible. 

On the other hand, I'm very happy that, during his tablet time, J is opting for just as many German videos as English ones. In the last couple of weeks, in fact, he's been watching almost exclusively German ones. This is fantastic for his language development. SparkofPhoenix, for example, speaks very quickly and often mumblingly-slurringly. This is great counterpoint to my German, which is often overproper in its enunciation, not to mention things like vocabulary and sentence construction, etc. 

There are also numerous bits of daily semi-targeted L2 use that are going unrecorded. For example, on the four days per week I take J to school, I make an effort to arrive a couple of minutes early so that we have time to sit down on a bench or in the library and read a couple of jokes, riddles, or interesting facts. For this purpose I have materials like the following ready on my ipod via kindle:

• Volker Friebel, Rätsel für Kinder
• Imke Stotz, Sagt Ulf zu Gnulf... : Die 500 besten Kinderwitze
• Norbert Golluch, Schlauer geht's nicht — über 700 Kinderfragen und ihre Antworten.

Media today 23

Reading: Max Kruse, Urmel aus dem Eis, ch. 5-6.

Listening: Grimm brothers, Kinder- und Hausmärchen, Nr. 1, "Der Froschkönig" (10 min.); Albert E. erklärt Kroko & Co., 46:00-52:00 (end); Albert E. erklärt unsere Sonne, 0:00-11:30. We also had this collection of German Christmas songs playing while I worked and J drew.

Viewing: Let's play Kung Fu Panda (Deutsch), no. 11 (20 min.)

This is a video recording of two German young people playing the German version of the KFP video game and recording their chat while doing so. It may seem like a strange resource, but these videos (and there are now a lot of them) are fantastic for L2 development for several reasons. First, the game itself features a lot of spoken text. 

Second, and more importantly, the players talk up a storm, using colloquial language and a wide range of speech patterns in ways impossible to get from audiobooks and movies. They talk fast, fun & slangy; they slur, shout, mumble, whisper, goof off & joke, argue, etc. Occasionally there is mild obscenity ("Scheiße!"), but nothing too bad, and quite frankly, besides naughty language being a natural part of an authentic speech environment, if picking some up provides J with even a modicum of extra titillation directed at the L2, I'm on board. Not that I ever signal anything but stern disapproval—I know my role! 

J loves these videos and would watch them all day if I let him. 

As for the Frog King, J has never had much to say about it and doesn't like it much. Not that I blame him. The way that the princess manages to lift the curse and be rewarded with true love and happiness not by overcoming her disgust with the froggy prince, as one would hope, but by giving into her revulsion and trying to kill him, is very strange. Not to mention the way a completely different story (Iron Heinrich) hijacks the end. 

When we came to the section where the iron bands around Iron Heinrich's heart break, J said laconically: "Das ist unmöglich" (That's impossible).

Age 5.1.5