This week’s Immersed post comes to you from David Broiles, a TNCS parent and enthusiastic supporter of language-learning. Mr. Broiles has devised a method to ensure that his children are continuing to be exposed to Spanish and Mandarin Chinese outside of school in fun, natural ways and very  generously offered to share his system with the The New Century School community at large.

Although U.S. television programming has made some inroads into acknowledging the existence of other languages, these shows offer only scant tidbits—a mini-vocabulary lesson at best. Watching a show in Spanish, however, is akin to immersion, the proven effective method for learning a language.

Says Mr. Broiles:

The most current scientific articles on language development have said that children’s brains are wired to learn languages prior to hitting puberty, so to be effective, we really want to emphasize languages now. Since my wife and I are not fluent in either Spanish or Mandarin, we are trying to increase our kid’s daily exposure with the resources we have available outside of TNCS. This includes alternating Spanish & Mandarin Netflix days, using books from Scholastic’s Club Leo (Spanish) and ordering comics from TaoBao (Chinese site similar to Amazon or eBay),  using YouTube Spanish and Mandarin children’s playlists during rides in the car, having fun Android and IOS apps installed on their tablets that focus on game play and don’t feel like homework, and even attending the Baltimore Chinese School on Sundays to increase exposure.

“How clever!” you are probably thinking to yourself. Or even, “But, I’ve tried that and was not successful in obtaining the materials.” Well, Mr. Broiles has you covered. He compiled all you need to know in an instructional youtube video (as well as provided the written steps farther below).

Bonus! He also created a youtube video of his adorable kids using the materials!

Instructions for Netflix Profile and Language:

1. Go to the full Netflix site on a desktop/laptop.
2. Add/create a Profile for Spanish; “All Maturity Levels” must be selected (i.e., do not click “Kids”).
3. Click on Browse, choose “Subtitles & Captions,” and then select “Spanish.”
4. Add desired shows to “My List” by clicking on the “+” sign located in the bottom right corner.
5. Once you are done adding shows, click on the profile icon, then “Edit/manage profile,” and change language to Español. Now, whenever you launch that profile and start a show that has been added to “Listo,” it will start automatically in Spanish on all of your devices/TVs.
6. You can also create a profile for Chinese/Mandarin and add the following shows to  “My List”: Netflix LEGO Bionicle, Netflix Puffin Rock, Netflix Lego Friends, and Netflix Popples. (Theses are currently the only shows Mr. Broiles could find in Mandarin.)

Note: You can also enable subtitles, if desired, by clicking on the screen while the show is playing or by pressing the down arrow on your remote.

Pro Tip: You can use the Google Translate app with your Phone.

Folks, this is a goldmine. So many parents long to enhance their children’s language acquisition and language fluency and/or bemoan the hours spent in front of a screen to seemingly no cognitive benefit. This system addresses both issues brilliantly. Immersed sends a huge thank you to David Broiles for this truly wonderful system!

¡Gracias! Xiè xiè (谢谢)!