WHY CHILDREN SHOULD LEARN LANGUAGES AS EARLY AS POSSIBLE?

I found this fascinating article which explain 6  reasons why children should be introduced to languages as early as possible. If you are interested to read the entire article visit: Language Lizard Blog.

1. Accent: It has already been established that children who learn a language when they are very young have a much better chance of not having a “foreign” accent when speaking another language. When we get older it is harder to pick up additional languages with native-like pronunciation.

2. 10,000 hours: Malcolm Gladwell in his book Outliers argues that to learn something well, it takes at least 10,000 hours of time on task (based on a study by K. Anders Ericsson) as well as the opportunity to learn the given task. Starting children early with language learning gives them this “leg up” that will help them succeed in mastering a language.

3. Enjoyment: Young children enjoy learning. They don’t care if an activity will improve their cognitive ability or motor skills.

4. Undaunted: The wonderful thing about young children is that they will give things a try without necessarily worrying if it is correct or not. They learn  without worrying about mistakes. 

5. Support network: Young children have the opportunity for exposure and input from many different influences: parents, teachers, companions, and extended family.Moreover, young children don’t have to deal with the difficulties of self-motivation that high school students or adults face when trying to learn a new language!

6.Unexceptional: Introducing children to languages when they are young helps them accept the fact that bilingualism and multilingualism are normal in our world.

Patricia Kuhl: The linguistic genius of babies

Patricia Kuhl shares astonishing findings about how babies learn one language over another by listening to the humans around them and "taking statistics" on the sounds they need to know. Clever lab experiments (and brain scans) show how 6-month-old babies use sophisticated reasoning to understand their world. (Filmed at TEDxRainier). You have the possibility to choose subtitles in 44 languages.

When did you learn a second language? Did you find it hard?