The document discusses the crucial role of real-time interpersonal interactions in language learning, highlighted by examples of children who struggle with language development due to a lack of communication at home. It critiques the effectiveness of media, such as language development DVDs, in teaching language skills, asserting that they cannot replace direct interpersonal engagement. Additionally, the author emphasizes the need for critical analysis of media's impact on language acquisition, drawing parallels with studies on how young animals learn through mimicking their peers.

1. Ryan D. Giviens

2. Effective language learning requires real-time
interpersonal interactions.
Jim, a boy at almost the age of four, has trouble
developing his language skills. His parents are both
deaf but his hearing ability is fully functional. He has no
verbal communication at home in English or ASL; this
hinders his language skills.
Media may compliment, but not take the place of
interpersonal language learning.
Holly employs the use of multiple children’s language
development DVDs to help her son, Nick, learn from the
age of three months. From her observations, the media
does not teach her child much. Rather, it encourages
her to utilize similar methods in person to teach Nick.

3. Language Learning:
Do the rules apply across
differing classes?
Songbirds, like humans, require a
‘tutor’ to learn their languages.
 White-Crowned Sparrows learn
by mimicking another’s sound
and learn even faster when
that sound is complimented by
visual mimicry.
 As fledglings, Zebra Finches
cannot learn at all without
direct haptic communication
and close proxemics to others
of their kind.

4. Babies possess the ability to distinguish a
variety of phonemes, which adults cannot. This
enables them to more easily learn languages.
Language DVDs sometimes lack in perfected
education methods.
Audio and video components may not match up
Speakers may not sound native to the language
Words may be presented without gender articles
Guernsey, L. (2012). Screen Time. New York:
Basic Books.

5. Even in a Controlled Study…
Real-Time Interpersonal Recorded Mass Media
After 12 sessions of 25 After 12 sessions of 25
minutes over the course of minutes over the course of
4 weeks, 32 babies were 4 weeks, 32 babies were
able to recognize two NOT able to recognize any
Chinese Mandarin Chinese Mandarin
phonemes that equally phonemes when exposed to
studied babies in an English either audio or audio-visual
control group could not. representations of a tutor.

6. Questions for Critical Analysis
Guernsey uses evidence to stress the necessity of interpersonal interaction
with any individual, particularly when it comes to language learning. However,
her book does not provide an equal amount of research to prove certain forms
of media cannot provide the same education. Use your own experiences with
digital language media as well as observations you have made of children and
their use of similar tools to provide evidence that both supports and refutes
Guernsey’s claim.
Consider your experience in the field of Communication and/or Media Studies
both in the classroom and in your personal life. What forms of communication
and its tools [i.e. haptics, complementing, supplementing, proxemics] do you
find most effective in interpersonal communication? What about in the media?
Certain methods work better in different areas of communication and for
different types of messages.
What can you infer about the differences between using media language tools
as an adolescent and using them at a much older age?