Potential for Affordable English Education for Infants and Toddlers

ケイザイテキフタン　ノ　スクナイ　ニュウヨウジ　エイゴキョウイク

スギヤマ, ユウキ

Sugiyama, Yuki

The Japanese Society for Mother Tongue, Heritage Language, and Bilingual Education

YouTube

デジタルメディア教育

This study examines the potential of YouTube as an affordable tool for early childhood English education in Japanese households. While previous research has shown that sufficient language exposure is crucial for children’s linguistic development, providing high-quality and abundant exposure to English in a Japanesespeaking environment remains challenging. The researcher’s child, from 3 months to 1 year and 10 months old, watched Ms. Rachel - Toddler Learning Videos daily (30 minutes to 1 hour), with parental involvement. Observations focused on pronunciation, speech recognition, vocabulary, attitudes toward English, and Japanese language development. Results show that YouTube exposure contributed to vocabulary growth and a positive attitude toward English. Japanese language development showed no delay, suggesting that maintaining a rich first-language environment mitigates potential negative effects. However, complex sentence comprehension remained challenging. Given concerns that excessive digital media exposure may negatively impact children’s cognitive, social, and physical development, it is essential to manage screen time appropriately. This study highlights YouTube’s feasibility for parents with limited English proficiency and underscores the need for interactive engagement. Future research should expand the sample size and consider parental English proficiency and enthusiasm for language learning as influential factors.