Absolutely false. Screen time is an excellent way of exposing the child to a language and thus learning to distinguish the phonemes that make it up. It can be argued that screen time alone doesn't help too much in learning to speak a language (if by screen we mean a non-interactive one, of course). But it's great for listening comprehension.
Source: starting when she was a baby, I let my kid watch as much TV as she wanted as long as it was in English and not in our language (Spanish). She watched about 2 hours a day, on average. Her mother and I are quite fluent in English and, even though we rarely speak it among us, we encouraged our child to learn it this way, occasionally answering her questions or translating the words that she couldn't figure out by herself. She's now 6 and speaks it pretty well, she can easily maintain a conversation and she is very good at identifying the correct phonemes while listening (even in the cases when she may not know the word). Actually, she's better at listening comprehension than what her mother and I could ever hope to achieve ourselves. Differentiating phonemes is a crucial ability that is learnt optimally at an early age and after only a few years old it cannot be learnt that well (I remember reading an article about this limitation in Scientific American more than 20 years ago, I don't have a link for that).
"Screen time" is also a great motivator to learn any language, if the fancy entertainment on the screen you'd like to understand is in a language you don't yet understand. (Similar effects apply to the written communication, of course.)
However, this is coming from my "learning a new language as a teenager / adult" experience than "raising bilingual kid" viewpoint, but it seems sensible that it would be also a powerful incentive for small kids, too.
It is a very good incentive for small kids as long as they are interested in watching TV and in the particular content shown. But not all kids like to stay quiet watching TV, some really need physical exertion and can't sit down.
Agree. My kid started watching toy unboxing videos by American kids on an iPad at a very early age. The recommender system kept new ones in front of him. Even though we don't live in an English speaking country he chose English as his first language quite early. Now the challenge is limiting his screen time and improving his skills in the local language.
I agree with you but I'm also familiar with the original research the claim about screen time stems from. The claim is that screen time is not effective for "bootstrapping" a different language for very small children - having human interaction does a much better job at that.
Regarding that research, I can see that human interaction should more efficient but that doesn't imply that screen time should be ineffective. And my kid is a counterexample, because it did bootstrap her English. She had no other source since we live in Argentina and we practically didn't talk to her in English. For a while she had some serious British accent because she was hooked on Peppa Pig, but now she sounds mostly American.
I agree 100% with you. I'm also from a non-English primary language group (South African) and I taught myself English mostly from television. Assuredly people would have been better since it's an adaptive learning experience with feedback, but even tv worked for me.
I came out with a bit of an odd accent though, as if I combined all the television accents into one.
I'm with you there. I grew up in America but had almost no exposure to English outside of watching PBS (parents refused to speak English with me or my sister). I was fine by the time I entered pre-school when I was 4.
Absolutely false. Screen time is an excellent way of exposing the child to a language and thus learning to distinguish the phonemes that make it up. It can be argued that screen time alone doesn't help too much in learning to speak a language (if by screen we mean a non-interactive one, of course). But it's great for listening comprehension.
Source: starting when she was a baby, I let my kid watch as much TV as she wanted as long as it was in English and not in our language (Spanish). She watched about 2 hours a day, on average. Her mother and I are quite fluent in English and, even though we rarely speak it among us, we encouraged our child to learn it this way, occasionally answering her questions or translating the words that she couldn't figure out by herself. She's now 6 and speaks it pretty well, she can easily maintain a conversation and she is very good at identifying the correct phonemes while listening (even in the cases when she may not know the word). Actually, she's better at listening comprehension than what her mother and I could ever hope to achieve ourselves. Differentiating phonemes is a crucial ability that is learnt optimally at an early age and after only a few years old it cannot be learnt that well (I remember reading an article about this limitation in Scientific American more than 20 years ago, I don't have a link for that).