When I see my daughter’s fascination for the Teletubbies I realize that there must be something special with these characters. For you, who don’t know who the Teletubbies are I’ll tell you that it’s like a family with four colourful figures. You can see them on the picture above. This program is created for the BBC by the British psychologist Andrew Davenport. My daughter is no interested in other children’s programmes but in front of the Teletubbies she can spend several hours. What makes these characters so interesting for young children and is there anything to learn from them?
First, the most important part of the whole film is that it is founded of repetition. In fact, they say the same thing at least 2 or 3 times. This makes the children learn new words and it lays the foundations to good communication. When you, as a young child, have heard the word "hello" for the forth time it becomes easier for you to say it on your own. Nevertheless, I think that repetition is important for the purpose of creating a language. When I speak to my little daughter I often say the same words many times, without thinking about it. Everyday I tell her that "this is a lamp, a lamp". Suddenly she looks at me, point at the lamp and says: "Lamp!". What happiness in the heart of a mother!
Another important reason which makes this programme so special is that the whole story is on the children’s level. It deals with a lot of everyday activities like eating, singing, sleeping and so on. The Teletubbies speak with childish voices which make the children feel solidarity. The language is adapted to them and to their level of learning. Against this, there are people who think that you shouldn’t change your voice when you are speaking to a child, but I claim that it doesn’t matter. Sooner or later all children begin to speak as adults. Don’t you think so too?
Throughout the film there are a lot of colours which I think the children pay attention to. It is well-known that young children prefer colours to black and white. Every character in the film has its own colour and personality. Furthermore, the colours are also very typical for special things, the grass is very green, the sky is blue and the sun is yellow. There is a lot of learning just through this colourful world.
Finally, fantasy is mixed with reality which fascinate the children. Several times we can see a baby smiling and it makes my daughter smile too. This little baby is a young child just like her. In the film there are also some stories about real children who are playing, singing, running etc. This combination of a made up story and real life makes the film move forward and the children will never be bored. There is always something new and this change makes the whole story more interesting.
In other words, I think it is the combination of the colourful characters, their childish voices and the constant repetition, which makes the story so interesting for children. It is all about something on their level. My daughter never becomes tired of watching these films and she wants to watch them over and over again. The best of all is that I feel totally safe when she is doing it since I know that there will never be something scary. Instead, there are a lot of things to learn from this successful story about the Teletubbies.
