Believe it or not, I learnt English through TV. I seldom read books when I was a child (I know not a good example but bear with me for a bit.)
Now I have to say I am annoyed by the amount of dubbing done to English cartoons/movies/series. To me it is a plague. And with it from my own opinion and observation it acts as one of the reason why the quality of English language proficiency in Malaysia had dropped. They now had dubbed Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Dora the Explorer, Diego, (in naming a few) and the worst part they started with SESAME STREET (why oh why?)
I used to remember when the only dubbed TV shows were Japanese drama/Japanese tokusatsu shows/arab series (I still vividly remember the one on Nabi Musa) and the only subbed TV series were the English movies/series on TV and during the age of 4-9 years old movies and series gain little attention from me.
So what else a boy would do? I watch cartoon. I remember during that time the cartoons were only in English and there were NO subtitles. None of it were subbed nor dubbed (YES NOT EVEN SESAME STREET), so there I was, watching what to others seemed like I’m just watching bright coloured moving figures on TV (most adults believed this) but little did they know, I was trying to understand what the cartoons were saying (no one noticed this until what happened next)
Obviously with great cartoon shows come cool toys. And naturally I (well, my dad) bought it.
(This part was re-narration from my mom’s story)
So the moment the toys got out from the box, to my parents’ surprise, I began to play with the toys in English (My parents do not/NEVER speaks English neither to me nor between them)
So there I was playing and I remembered that I always make it a point to make my toy reenactment of the cartoon episode just like the episode that I watched. So I tried to make sure to play with the toys in English. Often I asked my mom or dad “mama ‘lari’ orang putih panggil apa?”(Mom, what is run in English?) Or “abah, ‘sembunyi’ orang putih kata apa?” (Dad, what’s ‘hide’ in English?) And the vocabulary kept growing and growing every time I play with those toys.
Then when movies and TV series began to get my attention (salute to 6million dollar man, bionic woman, manimal, A-Team etc.) I gained more vocabulary by listening to conversations on TV and reading the subtitles to understand the words that weren’t familiar to me then.
Now I’m not saying that it is a foolproof language learning strategy but at a certain level it works.
But my advice is this. Regain control over that astro remote. If your kids want to watch cartoons let them, but DO NOT let them to even touch the Dual Language button. It’ll save you RM70/month worth of English tuition fees.
