But Do They Work?

But Do They Work?

Dr. Susan Curtiss, Professor of Linguistics at UCLA, who studies the way children learn languages, notes that language development is a window of opportunity in which the child learns a first language normally. After this period, the brain becomes slowly less plastic.

According to Dr. Curtiss, "...the power to learn languages is so great in the young child that it doesn't seem to matter how many languages you seem to throw their way...They can learn as many spoken languages as you can allow them to hear systematically and regularly at the same time. Children just have this capacity. Their brain is just ripe to do this...there doesn't seem to be any detriment to...develop(ing) several languages at the same time.

When children wait until high school to start studying a foreign language, the job is much harder. The task (then) involves learning the rules of grammar, translating, reading and trying to develop language learning strategies. The task is a different one than it was for the young child in the sensitive period for language learning. Brain plasticity has greatly reduced, and the brain no longer has the same facility to restructure itself that it had when the child was young."

[Quoted from; Research Notes: Language learning and the developing brain (1966, winter) "Learning Languages, 1"(2), 17] Reprinted, with permission, from the National Network for Early Language Learning (NELL) and the Center for Applied Linguistics (www.cal.org).

Studies have shown that after about the age of 2, it becomes more difficult for a child to acquire native pronunciation skills. It seems that the language(s) absorbed up until about age 2 constitute a type of “basic framework” that will be used to structure initial communication skills and later to build a useful knowledge of grammar. The critical time seems to be from 6 months to 12 months.

The normal process of acquiring language skills is rather chaotic (e.g., half heard telephone conversations, shouts, whispers, etc.). An infant typically hears a considerable variety of speech patterns while growing up. Hearing more than one language routinely gives a child broader pronunciation skills.

A study of bilingual babies by Ioulia Kovelman and Laura-Ann Petitto at Dartmouth College suggests that even very young children have no problem in picking up a second language, despite long-standing concerns that exposure to multiple languages too early could disrupt the brain's language-learning faculty.

Comment:

Exposure to a multilingual environment is a special situation in which assimilation of more than one language is easier and more natural. Generally however, mastery or the attempt to master any additional language by a child is a deliberate and highly personal decision by the child. This decision should be honored by parents as it is a reflection of a very personal outlook on life. Some children make a deliberate decision not to master more than one language and this should not be viewed as a problem or as a handicap.

Listening to or hearing our CDs involves an unconscious and natural way for a child to gain good pronunciation without any effort. It is recommended that parents place little or no emphasis on whether or not a child listens to our CDs. A child should not be forced to listen to the CDs. If they are played and heard, even indirectly or indistinctly, that is enough.

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