Benefits of Learning a Foreign Language
Traveling around the world has never been a necessity when it comes to encountering other languages. The Spanish language is spoken all over the United States, making it one many of us hope to learn and teach our children. This skill will give them a leg up no matter what career they choose or where they decide to live. French, German, Italian … these are also languages that open a child’s mind to unique cultures, foods and customs. Learning a new language is quite like a history lesson, as the origin of words is intriguing.
Learning a new language is certainly rewarding at any age, but children benefit from learning at a very young age. Research supports beginning bilingual education at the preschool level, as very young children are quick to learn and pick up a new language. Studies show that children who learned a second language as a youngster demonstrated cognitive advantages, such as increased problem-solving and creativity.
Many reports also have proven students who have studied a foreign language perform much better than their monolingual peers on many standardized tests, including all sections of the SAT. In fact, the 2007 College Bound Seniors report, issued by the College Board, which administers the SAT, shows significant benefits of studying a foreign language. The report shows that students with four or more years of foreign language study score on average 140 points higher (out of 800) than students with half a year or less of language experience.
Another great plus is that bilingual children’s knowledge of a second language gives them an advantage in learning to read. They also have more confidence to discover new things! Kiddos learn a new language more naturally and have fun with it. Learning more than one language is an excellent way of flexing and building up those brain muscles, too. Bilingual children, in one study reported in Nature, showed a significantly larger density of “gray matter” in their brains. And those who had been exposed to a second language from an early age proved to have the most gray matter of all. Gray matter is responsible for processing information, including memory, speech and sensory perception.
Children are always mimicking what they hear. They are uniquely attuned to slight differences in tone and sound, and their sensitive ears help them pick up on and duplicate the tricky sounds adults and even adolescents often stumble over. By starting early, your children can speak smoothly and confidently.
Colleges place a high value on knowledge of more than one language. As the admissions process becomes more competitive, knowing a second or third language adds a new dimension to an applicant’s resume. Traveling abroad is an experience we all benefit from, and knowing the language of the place you are visiting offers more confidence to experience different cultures.
Being able to compare their first and second languages, children cultivate a richer vocabulary. They use what they learn in one language to reinforce concepts and terms they’ve learned in the other.
Starting this process early with your children provides your family with an activity and an experience it can return to and grow with over the years. Your children and your whole family will benefit from learning a second language, and those benefits last for many years to come—a lifetime, in fact! Clearly, second language study offers a treasure trove to children in terms of improved communication ability, cognitive development and cultural awareness. It’s never too soon to start your child on the path of second language acquisition, so start today!
Now, have you ever wondered why children find it far easier to learn a new language than adults do? An oncology nurse has several thoughts, including the fact that for children, learning language is part of their brain chemistry. They are literally built to absorb information; they do this in an unconscious state of mind--they’re learning and they don’t even know it! Adults and older children, on the other hand, must consciously learn the information, which makes it harder because when we learn that way, information sometimes gets lost or disassociated. To make this easier to understand, think of it like listening to a song. When you listen to a song enough times, you learn the rhythms and lyrics, whether you like the song or not. This is unconscious learning, similar to how children learn languages. However, when you are reading to study for a test, some or all of the information is not absorbed. This is because you are making a conscious effort to learn, which makes it harder for your brain to gather information.
Learning languages as a child is also easier because there’s much less complex information to digest. When you learn at a young age, you usually only learn to associate words with their meanings. When you’re an adult, you have to do that as well as learn all of the grammatical rules, thus making a second language harder to learn.
Another simple and obvious reason why children find learning languages easier is their diminished level of self-consciousness. They take pride in practicing out loud, even if they sound silly, a habit that can be very beneficial in helping the brain absorb information.
Judy Goppert lives in Lee’s Summit. She enjoys drawing on her personal experiences to write about the nuances of everything wonderful about life.
Sources: SpanishIW.com, sites.PSU.edu, TakeLessons.com