If you ask an adult about the education they received as a child, most will tell you that part of their education included learning a second language. For many of us, our formal introduction to that second language came during the secondary school years – long after the window of opportunity for easy language learning had closed. As a result, many of us who have moved beyond high school and college rarely remember how to say more than “Where is the bathroom?” or “Yes, may I have a coke.” What’s the good news here? We have the power to ensure that our children don’t suffer the same monolinguistic fate.
Fortunately for our children, attentive primary schools are finally starting to acknowledge the fact that a child’s ability to learn a new language starts to diminish once they turn 8-years-old. With this new found acknowledgment comes primary school curriculums that are dedicated to introducing students – starting in Pre-K and Kindergarten – to a second (or in some cases a third) language.
Along with being able to confidently ask for directions to the nearest bathroom or water closet on the next family trip, children who start learning a second or third language from an early age reap some incredible benefits…
Benefit One: Increased Chance for Fluency and Stronger Linguistic Abilities
Like we acknowledged earlier, children are hardwired for learning language – to a point. Between the ages of 8 and 12 children lose the ability to mimic and reproduce the new sounds that come with speaking a second language. Children and adults who try to learn a second language after this point are more likely to retain an accent that, while they may ultimately attain fluency, will leave them easily recognizable as a foreign speaker. Younger learners who try to learn a second language have a more sensitive ear and more responsive speech muscles that are capable of capturing the linguistic intricacies of a second language.
Benefit Deux: Mastering Cognition
Research has shown that as much as learning a second language is about mastering linguistics, it’s about improving cognition. The cognitive benefits that come to children who start to learn a second language at an early age are impressive to say the least. Here are a few of the more interesting benefits that researchers have discovered:
• Learning a second language doesn’t diminish a child’s ability to learn the first language, it strengthens it. As a result, infants and children who are exposed to more than one language tend to have stronger verbal skills.
• Children who learn more than one language tend to be better at problem solving and thinking critically.
• Multilingualism has been linked to increased creativity, mental flexibility, and memory.
The list of cognitive benefits that comes with learning a second or third language takes us right into our third benefit…
Benefit Tres: Greater Chances of Long-Term Academic Success
The cognitive benefits that comes from learning a new language, especially the flexibility and the ability to think critically, help to nurture a child’s ability to perform academically. Studies have shown that academically motivated bilingual children perform better than their monolinguistic peers. Starting from primary school and moving forward, multilingual students tend to perform better in math, reading, and testing. Studies have even shown that students who know more than one language often have higher SAT scores.
Benefit أربعة: Improved Sense of Cultural Awareness
To put it simply: Learning a new language allows for opportunities that would not have been possible otherwise. Whenever a child is introduced to a new language at an early age, his or her chances for achieving conversational fluency increase significantly. If the child goes on to gain that fluency, then he or she has immediately given themselves access to new resources, people, places, and – most importantly – experiences. It’s the ability to have these experiences that leads us to our fifth and final benefit…
Benefit 五: Enhanced Sense of Global Citizenship
Having the opportunity to experience people and places beyond our own American backyard makes it possible for children, as they grow, to develop a greater sense of global awareness and citizenship. Character, confidence, and integrity are all built around a child’s ability to grow into a compassionate adult capable of engaging with the world they live in.
What are the takeaways?
Every child should be given the opportunity to learn a second language starting at an early age. The benefits are undeniable. At CHP, it’s our mission to provide our students with every possible tool for success, which is part of the reason why we take so much pride in our World Languages program. Our nationally recognized program offers our students the opportunity to excel in five different world languages: French, Spanish, Hindi, Mandarin, and Arabic (the most recent edition to the CHP language program).
Want to learn more about all that CHP has to offer?
