While attending grad school, I (Shorel) took some courses in language acquisition. What I found fascinating is how the first several years are instrumental in a child’s language development.
The following video is of Schäfer in March 2008 speaking (and signing) what words he knew. He was 15 months at the time.
Initial Words from shorel & sandra on Vimeo.
We only took a small selection of books with us on vacation. After our day at the zoo, I wanted to read our zoo book at bedtime. I paused after reading the first question “Who sleeps all day?” only to hear Schäfer answer back “koala”.
Excuse me, did you just say koala?
There were no koala’s in the Beijing zoo so I assumed he had memorized it from reading this book over and over. That night I learned that he had both books memorized.
The following video shows Schäfer answering some of the questions from his zoo and farm books. This video was taken on August 8th (08.08.08).
Farmer Book and Zoo Book from shorel & sandra on Vimeo.
When multilingual children learn language they only can’t distinguish between the different languages. Schäfer uses Chinese, English and baby sign language interchangeably. In another year or so he’ll start to distinguish between Chinese and English and when to use which.
at 19.5 months Schäfer can say:
dinosaur eats
big dog
bear
fan
bye bye
taxi
train
subway
air plane
car
dump truck
cement mixer truck (no, I’m not kidding)
watermelon truck
tractor
tank
(he’s very close to getting out “submarine” and “helicopter”)
boat
fire truck
1,2,3,4,5…
outside
ball
Schäfer
sleep
robot
balloon
Raffe
bath
rice
butterfly
milk
sit
seat
hello
mommy
papa (he’s starting to drop Baba)
leaf
straw
please…
wheel
oatmeal
raisin
music
dance
seaweed
apple
pizza
spaghetti
milk
swimming
out
go play
try it
banana
strawberry
kitchen
book
Bible
Jesus
froggie
cat
dog
fish
chicken
horse
goat
sheep
panda
zebra
monkey, etc.
Ok, that’s off the top of my head. I think “seaweed” is my (Sandra) favorite word because he loves to snack on seaweed. It’s just so fun to the Arkansan-in-me.
He’s also mostly dropped all his baby sign language, but he will still use them for emphasis – especially the sign for “more.”
I noticed after our month away, he dropped quite a bit of Chinese. He still understands a ton, but only frequently says the following. He’ll probably drop most of this after our 4 month break in the states. I’m not worried because he’ll pick it up again when we get back. (As for me…oh my! I hope I don’t forget too much!)
in Chinese he says:
hi
bye
big sister
little sister
big brother
little brother
uncle
aunt
grandma
grandpa
ball
throw
sit
no throw
walk
also want
car
1,2,3 (I’ve also heard him count to 10 once on his own)
go play
carry me
bread
eat
chicken
duck
dog
cat
don’t have
still want
trash
little brother’s house
little brother’s stroller
I loved reading through the word lists, and loved the video! It’s so amazing to watch them learn!
Aww Schafer, you’re so clever!
Soooooooo ke ai!!