By Stacy DeBroff

The benefits of learning a second language are linguistic, cognitive, social and cultural, including: heightened creativity, enhanced problem solving and spatial relations skills, improved listening skills, and ability to learn a third or fourth language more easily.

• Many children who learn a second language perform better on cognitive and verbal tests as well as on standardized tests such as the SAT. Research also suggests that learning a second language improves your child’s analytical and math skills.

• Languages enable your child to understand other cultures, appreciate people from other countries, and potentially have a competitive advantage in the workforce.

• Studies now show that a child taught a second language after age 10 is unlikely to ever speak it like a native. Experts attribute this phenomenon to physiological changes that occur in the brain as a child enters puberty.

• Because kids are less self-conscious than adults, they rarely fear saying something funny or getting a concept wrong. This lack of embarrassment or inhibition aids them in pronouncing foreign words correctly and becoming fluent sooner than adults.

KIDS WHO TEND TO EXCEL
• A language student who excels
• Imitates easily
• Displays verbal astuteness
• Has strong skills in his first language
• Has a good memory
• Welcomes new challenges.

BEST AGE TO START

• The earlier children start learning a second language, the better, even as early as one year old. Many teachers and linguists recommend starting the language learning process as soon as possible, even before children become verbal in their first language. Even though children are not speaking at that point, they are actively absorbing and processing language.

• By 6 months, children in English-speaking households already have developed different auditory maps, shown by electrical measurements that identify which neurons respond to different sounds, from those in Swedish-speaking homes. This is why learning a second language after, rather than with, the first is so difficult. The auditory map of the first language restricts the learning of a second language.

• After the age of 10, children are unlikely to that your child will to speak a newly learned language like a native. Still, it is absolutely feasible to learn a new language, and learn it well, as an adolescent or even an adult. For students in middle or high school, foreign language learning often becomes a part of their regular academic curriculum. It often helps to augment the classroom learning by your child participating in a language club where the language is used conversationally, led by a native speaker, or to do home stay program during the summer immersed in a country where the language is spoken.

WHAT TO LOOK FOR WHEN GETTING STARTED

• Visual aids, workbooks and songs are important to facilitate learning a different language.

• Ask if the teachers are native speakers, as children absorb the accent they hear. If you’re enrolling in a program, does the director speak that language such that they’re capable of judging a teacher’s accent and choice of vocabulary?

• Be wary of programs classified as using a “proven method.” Make sure the program has a method, and that they are not just singing and playing in another language.

• In terms of your involvement outside of formal lessons, you do not have to speak the language your child is learning in order to help him be successful. Find ways to expose your child to the new language and encourage him to use the language outside of class. Check out language books from the library, buy children’s music in the language, and watch videos in the language.

• While children over 8 years old can be effectively privately tutored, they often thrive with stimulation and company of other children. Consider arranging group language lessons with friends at someone’s home, where a group of five kids can learn the language together.


LANGUAGE IMMERSION PROGRAMS

• Immersion means that from the moment that children walk into the room all activities are conducted entirely in the foreign language. Young children are uniquely suited to absorb a second language as naturally as their first. They learn more effectively without translation or English equivalents.

• Mostly English-speaking parents, who want to foster bilingualism, place their toddlers in these programs. Spanish, French, Chinese and Japanese lessons are being offered at select child-care centers and preschools.

• A child’s emotional, social, and intellectual growth are further developed by participating in various activities, such as story-telling, music, drawing, arts and crafts, blocks, counting, and reading, in a different language. In addition, engaging in routine activities, such as snack-time and clean-up, in a different language also foster their skills.

• Children learn best through relaxing and enjoyable play. However, if the play does not include a structured curriculum, taught with consistent technique, your child may have fun but will not have learned much.

COST CONSIDERATIONS

• Costs vary so dramatically depending on the length of the language program and the materials included in the fee that it is hard to give average costs.
• Find out if your child will have to purchase any materials such as learning tapes or CDs or if they are included.

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