WHY LEARNING YOUNG?


Window of Opportunity

Between birth and adolescence the brain is hard-wired to acquire language naturally. As a child approaches puberty, the nature of language learning and storage changes, becoming less flexible.

Learning a second language at a young age is cognitively as easy as learning a first language.

A child's brain processes multiple languages in parallel paths, building a second language system alongside the first.

An older learner after puberty stores new languages in a separate area of the brain, requiring translation and explicit grammar training to learn.

The diminishing plasticity of the brain makes early learning optimal.

Taking advantage of this window of opportunity by exposing your child to a second language young allows a chide to optimize his or her learning potential, helping to shape the brain at its most flexible stage. The more stimulation language centers in the brain receive during this critical window, the more neural connections develop, enhancing not only long term language skills, but overall intelligence development.

Linguistic Benefits

Young language learners can acquire native-like fluency as easily as they learn to walk.

Learning a second language young is as natural as learning to walk.

Children learn naturally, building a second language system alongside, not through the first.

Children absorb the sounds, structures, intonation patterns and rules of a second language intuitively without grammar drills.

Children mimic a native-like accent flawlessly.

Young language learners can acquire native-like fluency as easily as they learned to walk, in contrast to an adult language learner. Where adult learners have to work through an established first-language system, studying explicit grammar rules and practising rote drills, the young learner learns naturally, absorbing the sounds, structures, intonation patterns and rules of a second language intuitively, as they did their mother tongue. The young brain is inherently flexible, uniquely hard-wired to acquire language naturally.

Young learners benefit from flexible ear and speech muscles that can still hear the critical differences between the sounds of a second language, as well as reproduce them with native-like quality.

Cognitive Benefits

Children who learn a language young go on to show enhanced spatial relations and problem solving skills, stronger overall communications skills, and higher Sats test scores.

While some parents worry that starting their toddler on a second language will interfere with developing English skills, the opposite is actually true. Children can differentiate between two languages within the first weeks of life; "learning another language actually enhances a child's overall verbal development", says Roberta Michnick Golinkoff PhD, author of "How Babies Talk".

The research goes on to show a number of additional cognitive benefits to learning a second language at an early age. Children who study foreign language show higher cognitive performance in overall basic skills in primary schools. Children who learn a foreign language at a young age also exhibit better problem solving skills, enhanced spatial relations and heightened creativity. Learning a second language encourages flexible thinking and communication skills, helping children consider issues from more than one perspective.

Lifelong benefits

The gift of language is an investment that last a lifetime!

Young learners enrich their lives and open up doors to their future by gaining:

- an expanded world view
- greater intercultural appreciation and sensitivity
- ability to learn additional languages more easily