Video Review: Amharic 4 Our Kids

I recently purchased a video from Amharic.com entitled "Amharic 4 Our Kids, Vol. 1". Here is the blurb about the product on the website:

This is the first fully animated DVD that is designed specially for kids to teach them Amharic (the most popular language in Ethiopia). It is suitable for kids of all ages and skill levels. The educational section focuses on the Amharic alphabet, vocabulary, and writing, while the entertainment section contains popular songs and dancing. Run Time: 1 hour, 27 minutes.

I was hopeful that this would help us learn some basic Amharic with Nate and Dexter in preparation for our adoption, and then to use post-adoption as well. The fact that it was in an animated kid-friendly form seemed to be a good fit, as it would allow us to all learn together.

Overall, I was very disappointed with this product and I give it a 1/5 rating. It contains 4 different sections, which I will review individually.

Vocabulary
This section presents approximately 20 color and body part vocab words. The primary problem with the vocabulary section (and truthfully, the whole video) is that it is not a research-based language learning tool. The way that the material is presented in this video is not consistent with current research about how children (and adults) learn language. In order to facilitate language learning, words should be presented clearly and repetitively with as many visual cues as possible (visual cues might be footage of a real person saying the word, multiple examples/pictures of the word, the phonetic spelling of the word, etc.) Instead, this video uses very poorly done animated characters with robotic voices who speak the word only once, and even then it is nearly impossible to hear over the loud background music and sound effects. The only thing that saves this section from being completely and totally useless is the quiz portion. Here they actually show a phonetic spelling, which allows the words to be understood and repeated. (They also use the real Jeopardy! theme song and if they paid for that privilege I will be surprised, given the low quality of the rest of the video!)

Music & Dance
This section is neat because it shows traditional dances from different regions of Ethiopia. That being said, these videos are easily accessible on YouTube and certainly not worth buying the video for. There are also 2 animated song/dance parts that I found to be borderline creepy. The animation is so poor that it really takes away from the presentation.

Amharic Alphabet
This part is totally useless. An animated character sings a very annoying song that repeats letters of the Amharic alphabet. You can't understand what he's saying and it is not the kind of song that can serve well as a mnemonic device because it just repeats the same tune for each set of 2 letters. If you already knew the Amharic alphabet, the song might be a fun way to repeat and review the letters, but if you don't know it this video certainly won't teach it to you.

Writing in Amharic
Again, I found this section useless. An animated character says the names of all the Amharic letters, while a person's hand is shown drawing them. This is repeated over and over, but no explanation is ever given of what the letters represent. The letters are never used to make words, or explained in phonetic terms, so they are virtually meaningless unless you already know them.

The video is called "Amharic 4 OUR Kids," and after watching it I am certain that OUR kids does not mean MY kids... perhaps it would be more beneficial for use within an Amharic-speaking family as a teaching tool to help children retain their language in an English-speaking country? Even then, I'm not sure it would be very beneficial.

So here's the funny part: MY KIDS LOVE IT. They ask to watch it every day. They usually get bored with each section quickly, but they still like watching it. The vocab section is their favorite, and I think after several viewings (with lots of reinforcement from me) they might actually learn a few of the words presented. So... I do not count it a total loss. I had planned on buying another one of their products (Amharic the EZ Way), but now I am definitely reconsidering. Anyone know any good, research-based language learning programs for Amharic??

story-telling, story-keeping

I have a question for all those of you who have already adopted:

How do you respond when people ask about your child's "story"?

We have already encountered this a little bit from friends and family who know we're adopting, but I'm guessing it will be much more frequent after we bring our boy home. Even now I am struggling to figure out what to share and with whom. The bottom line is that this question is deeply personal - not for me, necessarily, but for our son. After all, whatever information I share is his information. Even taking the easy route of just saying we don't know much about his story is actually still sharing something intensely personal, because it gives the impression that he won't know his story either.

My preference would be to have a go-to line that I use with most people, politely explaining that we don't share personal details about his life prior to adoption... But in some ways I have issues with that too, because it kind of implies that what happened pre-adoption isn't important or that it is something taboo that we just don't talk about (neither of which are the least bit true). What I really want to say to people is that our child's story is important, and we do talk about it... just not with YOU.

I'd love to hear how other adoptive parents handle these types of questions... Do you share different amounts with different people? What's your favorite way to say "mind your own business" politely?

by request

For those of you who requested rambly and uninformed... here you go.

----

When I was in 3rd grade we got a new student in our class. My best friend was in a different class, so when we met up at recess I informed her of the event. "We got a new girl in our class today and she's black," I told her. The new girl overheard me and came over to us. "I'm not black, I'm Mexican." "Oh. Sorry," I said, and my friend and I ran off to play wall-ball. I remember thinking something along the lines of black, Mexican, whatever. Later I remember being shocked to find out she lived in one of the nicest houses in our neighborhood and her father was a wealthy small-business owner.

----

I grew up believing that I could do or be anything I wanted. I grew up believing that everyone had that same opportunities in life, no matter what race they were or what their background was. I grew up believing that if you didn't reach your goals in life, you didn't want them bad enough or work hard enough to get them.

Those things were true for me, but who was I? A white girl whose parents went to college, got married, got good jobs, stayed together, and provided for all my physical, emotional, spiritual, and educational needs. Did I earn any tiny little bit of that privilege? Nope. Did this unearned privilege inform the above-mentioned beliefs? Of course.

This is not bad or wrong or anyone's fault. It just is. Or was -- I don't believe those things anymore.

----

In the paper the other day I saw a story about unemployment. The headline read "In jobless misery, it's mostly women and children first." The article noted that single mothers have been hard-hit by unemployment and featured two pictures of white women with children. They also included a table of unemployment statistics, which showed that black men had the highest rate of unemployment by a significant amount. But that's not going to sell papers is it?

----

What am I rambling on about? Well, I think I'm trying to get at a couple of things. One, that I have started very deep in the hole when it comes to understanding racial issues in America today. But, two, I am trying to grab the rope with both hands and climb my way out.

Why does this matter, and what does it have to do with adoption? Well, as I noted in my previous post, it turns out we are white and our third son is not. In order to be the best parents we can be for him, we need to understand what this might mean for us and for him. I've heard people say, "Oh it doesn't matter what color our child is, we love him just the same." DUH. That was never in question. The question is, would you ever need to say that about your white non-adopted child? And even if we were to say that race doesn't matter to us, it will very likely matter to our son. It is part of his identity, and brushing it aside is like saying that part of him has no value. OF COURSE it doesn't affect how much we love him, but it does affect who he is, just like being white affects who I am. As his parents we want to help him form a healthy racial identity; taking the blinders off and realizing all the ways that our society is biased toward white as the "norm" is a step toward being able to do that.

Oh! It is so hard to it "publish" on something this scattered and unfinished, but I guess it is representative of where my thinking is on these things right now. As Claudia reminded me in the comments of my last post, I am thinking, and that is important in and of itself.

a little light reading on racial issues

How will we -- two white people with two white kids who grew up in mostly white communities -- parent a child who is not white? Not an easy question, and it doesn't have an easy answer. We are trying to listen to many different perspectives as we consider this challenge, including adult transracial adoptees, adoption professionals, anti-racism advocates, parents who have adopted transracially, and others.

I just wrote a long post about 'white privilege' and how this adoption process has opened our eyes to racial issues in a way that we had never considered before (and that statement in itself is actually evidence of 'white privilege'), but then I decided it was too rambly and uninformed. Instead I will invite you to read this essay, which compares white privilege to right-handedness, and also to check out this disgusting juxtaposition of two very different captions on two very similar pictures.

Thoughts?

court date (beta version 1.0)

I usually wake up to the boom-boom-boom of little feet (whoever coined the term "pitter-patter" never had kids), but today I was awakened instead by a very unexpected phone call. Our case manager is on MST and forgot that it was only 7 AM in Seattle, but I did not mind a bit because she was calling to tell us that we had been assigned a court date for November 26 in Ethiopia! This was a shock to both her and us, as we were told not to expect any information for at least a few weeks after the courts reopen in late September. Apparently someone is working some overtime over there (or maybe they just have really good rain boots?) because families are still getting assigned court dates, despite the rainy season closure.

We are excited, but we are also trying to be realistic about what this means. It does not actually mean that we'll be going to court on November 26. In fact, we were given about a 90% chance that this date will change in the next couple of months. It does not mean we can buy plane tickets or start making arrangements for travel. All of that will still need to wait until after the courts reopen and things get back up and running. But it does mean that our case is ready for court, which is encouraging. It means that the court system is still operating at some level even though they are officially closed, so maybe that will result in a smoother transition time when they reopen. It means that something is happening and that feels good!

first steps

Today one little word broke my heart.

Walking.

It showed up in this month's child developmental report from YWAM, looking innocent enough in the section labeled "other comments". But last month the report said walks with help... and this month it says walking. Oh! I cried and cried: equal parts sadness and pride.

Some of my tears were for myself -- as a mama it hurts to miss this milestone in my baby's life.

Some of my tears were for him -- though I know he is loved and adored by his nannies, he didn't stumble into a mother's arms after those first precious steps. Separate from wanting that for myself, I want that for him.

And some of my tears were for his first mama -- she missed this too.

Even still, we will tuck away this memory and keep it for him. We don't have pictures or videos, like we do of his brothers' first steps, but we have this little moment of faraway pride and love. It's not the same, and maybe it's not enough... but we'll give what we have in love, and where we fall short may God's grace abound.

Nate, age 12 months


Dexter, age 15 months

sharing links

Are you following Our Little Tongginator? If you are an adoptive / prospective adoptive parent who is not allergic to wit, honesty, humor, perspective, and exclamation! points! then you should definitely check it out. If nothing else, visit every Sunday afternoon for what TongguMomma calls "Sunday Linkage". Where this woman finds the time to be an amazing mom to her Little Tongginator and scour the web every week for the most thought-provoking and interesting blog posts about adoption... well, it's a mystery to me. I'm sure thankful she does though!