Revenge Of The Hand Puppets: Early Start Mandarin

One of our favorite parenting bloggers, Mimi Tsang - better known to readers as shiso mama - frequently discusses her family's adventures in raising a son in a bilingual Chinese-English household. We were thrilled when she accepted our offer to review a pair of DVDs from Early Start Mandarin for our Language Week, even though it meant shipping them to her in Taiwan, where she was living at the time. Below are her thoughts about the programs.

Since our son, Otis, was born, my husband and I have been working hard to raise him bilingual (my husband speaks to him in English, and I, in Mandarin). Although I’ve been surprised with how well his Chinese has been developing, I’ve been interested in finding other ways to reinforce his language skills. Thus, I jumped at the opportunity to review the first two volumes in what is now a four-volume series of DVDs, Early Start Mandarin Chinese Learning with Bao Bei the Panda.

Materials: Each DVD is about 30 minutes long, and focuses on a theme: Colors and animals (Vol. 1), numbers and fruits (2), daily activities (3), and a volume entitled "My Healthy Body" (4). We sampled their first two volumes.

Methodology and scope: The Early Start Mandarin programs are geared towards children ages 1 to 5, and feature Bao Bei (a panda hand puppet) and Chu Chu (an animated cricket) who teach very simple vocabulary words through repetition, using live action video and colorful animation.

Impressions: Otis adores TV and watches it every chance he gets, even though we don’t have one in our house. But despite the fact that I showed him the DVDs at some of his most desperate, TV-hungry moments, he usually quickly grew bored and wandered away. Watching along with him, I could see why. Learning through television is already a pretty passive experience, but there were lost opportunities to engage young viewers. There were not enough prompts for kids to repeat words, and Otis almost never jumped in to participate unless I encouraged him to do so. There were no ways for Otis to be physically engaged, such as with clapping, dancing or even jumping (despite the fact that "jump" is one of the first words taught). And Otis loves music, but short of the same classical music repeated in the background, there were no songs to learn and sing.

The visuals were also disappointing. There was too much animation and not enough live-action for our tastes. Usually animation is good, but in these videos, “animation” consisted of simple illustrations that only moved by being rotated or floating about the screen. Otis adores animals and trains, and would have jumped up with excitement had they shown the real thing rather than drawings or toys. Feeling sensitive to the fact that Otis already knows the Chinese taught in these videos, I’ve shown the program to other children and the general consensus is that it’s “boring.”

The video's greatest shortcoming, from my perspective, was the fact that the Chinese pronunciations were often imprecise: It was sometimes hard to hear or understand the children when they spoke, and Bao Bei didn’t sound like a native Chinese speaker.

Having said that, the program is not without its merits. I like the use of multi-aged and multi-ethnic children, often shown engaged in fun activities outside. The pacing is slow, and there is a lot of repetition, which is good for toddlers. Despite his boredom, Otis quickly started identifying the main characters, and has since requested Bao Bei by name. And the days when I did show him the program, he repeated segments of it later on during random times.

You child will never learn how to speak Chinese by watching a DVD, but Bao Bei could provide a gentle introduction to hearing the language and learning some basic words with repeated viewings. Keep in mind that you may have to watch the program repeatedly with your child in order to make it a more interactive experience. I personally believe my time and money are better spent elsewhere.

Where to Buy: Early Start Mandarin programs can be purchased through the Early Start Mandarin website or on Amazon.com.