Benefits of a Second Language
Why learn a second language? You already know some of the benefits of knowing a second language, including:
- Travel and cultural opportunities
- Admission to better universities
- Increased employment opportunities
- General life enrichment
However, you might not be aware of some of the profound affects that early language exposure can have on the developing brain of a child.
How learning a second language affects the young brain
It has long been known that there is a strong link between language, music and other developmental skills, such as math and logical thinking. Children who are exposed to music and/or language training show measurable improvements in other cognitive skills. Researchers believe that early language exposure actually increases the size and power of a child's brain!
Current Brain Research
In some regards an infant's brain is like a blank slate. Exposing your child to a second language at an early age can actually change the way your child's brain is structured by forming connections that otherwise would not be formed. These connections seem to be not only necessary for learning language, but are beneficial in many other academic areas: study after study shows that students who have studied a second language do better in other seemingly unrelated areas such as mathematics and logic.
The Earlier the Better
Research proves that the best time to learn a foreign language is in infancy - the sooner the better. According to neurobiologists, a newborn’s brain is like a new computer waiting to be programmed. Some of the brain’s basic functions, such as breathing and heart beat are fixed in place while baby is still in the womb. But trillions of other connections in the brain are just waiting to be made, or programmed in, during the first years of life. Some of these early connections govern such skills as the ability to see and distinguish faces and objects, to master basic motor skills. Others are specifically waiting there to learn languages. But these connections will only develop to the extent to which they are used, and if not developed when the child is young, the "window of opportunity" to develop these connections will quickly fade, until by about age 8 or 10, it is all but lost.
A few samples of what researcher say:
"Third, fourth, and fifth graders studying languages showed significantly higher scores on the ... Basic Skills Language Arts Test than a similar group of nonparticipants. In addition, by fifth grade the math scores of language students were also higher than those of nonlanguage students."
Rafferty, E.A. (1986)
"These <bilingual> children score well above anticipated national norms in both reading and mathematics and higher than the average of all magnet school participants."
Andrade, C. et al. (1989)
"Students who speak more than one language perform higher than their monolingual counterparts on tests of academic achievement, cognitive flexibility, and creativity"
(Moran & Hakuta, 1995; Bialystok & Hakuta, 1991; Rafferty, 1986; Hakuta & Diaz, 1985; Saxe, 1983, others
"Research suggests that students who receive second language instruction are more creative and better at solving complex problems than those who do not."
Bamford and Mizokawa, (1991)
"People who are bilingual have an advantage over the rest of us, and not just in terms of communication skills. The bilingual brain develops more densely, giving it an advantage in various abilities and skills, according to new research...brain imaging showed that bilingual speakers had denser gray matter compared with monolingual participants."
Miranda Hitti -WebMD Medical News (Oct. 13, 2004)
"The difference was especially significant in the brain's left side -- an area known to control language and communication skills. The right hemisphere of bilingual speakers also showed a similar trend.
As in the first test, increases in gray matter density in the brain's left region were linked to age at which a person became bilingual. The earliest second language learners had the densest gray matter in that part of the brain.
Our findings suggest that the structure of the human brain is altered by the experience of acquiring a second language."
Mechelli, A. Nature, (October 2004)
"The power to learn language is so great in the young child that it doesn’t seem to matter how many languages you throw their way. They can learn as many as you allow them to hear systematically and regularly at the same time."
Susan Curtis, linguistics professor at the University of California, Los Angeles.
"The researchers say that although language is thought to be mediated by functional changes in the brain, they show that being bilingual structurally changes the brain. Their study shows the effect was strongest in people who had learned a second language before age 5.
Those who had learned <a second language> at a young age had greater proficiency in reading, writing, talking, and understanding English speech."
(Mechelli, A. Nature, October 2004)
"An obvious advantage of knowing more than one language is having expanded access to people and resources. Individuals who speak and read more than one language have the ability to communicate with more people, read more literature, and benefit more fully from travel to other countries. Introducing students to alternative ways of expressing themselves and to different cultures gives greater depth to their understanding of human experience by fostering an appreciation for the customs and achievements of people beyond their own communities. Ultimately, knowing a second language can also give people a competitive advantage in the work force by opening up additional job opportunities"
(Villano, 1996)
Language...and music too!
"Research shows a brain function correlation between music and language mechanisms"
Ardene Shafer - MENC
Isn’t it funny how you can immediately forget someone's name, yet remember all the lyrics to songs you haven’t heard in years? There’s a link between language and music that makes lyrics easier to remember. For thousands of years, before there was written language, oral traditions were set to song, so that vital information could be remembered and passed down through the generations. Talk about a time-proven technique!
It started as just a tool...
When we first began using music to teach language, we knew right away we were on to something. Our initial motivation was simply to make the children want to hear and repeat the vocabulary as much as possible, while making the classes more fun and engaging. And boy does it work! Parents say the children sing the songs constantly, and request that the music be played whenever possible - in the car and at home.
The synergy between Language and Music
What we later learned, however, is that music offers its own benefits - similar and complimentary to the benefits of learning a 2nd language. Like language, there is documented research that shows that early exposure to music can lead to increased brain density and an increased skill in math and logic. However, the music seems to stimulate a different yet complimentary portion of the brain. We feel that both are important to a child's development, and it is serendipitous that our method incorporates music as a means of teaching language.
Why we put the music in Music Lingua
- Kids love to sing along with the songs, so they get much more practice speaking and hearing the language.
- The music is fun, so the children tend to listen to them at home, in the car, etc. This repetition reinforces the language learning between classes.
- Even infants enjoy listening to the music, and through it become exposed to the sounds of language in the critical early years.
- The music and activities in the class are of tremendous benefit to the child in their own right, even without the language, helping them to socialize and to learn to particpate in a group environment.
- The combination of singing, drama, games and art make the classes dynamic and fun, and hold the child's interest.
- Words and phrases, even foreign ones, are much easier to remember when put to music.
- Music and language are complimentary, and both are crucial for a child's development. By combining the two, the child enjoys a benefit far greater than just the sum of the parts.
Why your child should start NOW
Few things are more beneficial to a child than learning a second language . But to maximize these benefits, a child must start young, preferably as an infant. Research shows that an infant's brain comes pre-wired to learn language, and children begin to build their language skills from birth, using the sounds of the speech they are exposed to. They can actually differentiate between different languages long before they can vocalize them themselves, and there seems to be no limit to the number of languages a young child can acquire.
It doesn't get any easier
Young children the world over effortlessly pick up whatever language or languages they are exposed to. Researchers say that when you are young, you acquire language, rather than having to learn it. If you wait until you are older to start, language becomes something you must learn by rote and memorization. It then becomes work, and few people who start late with a second language ever succeed in becoming fluent with good accents.
Building a bigger, better brain
When it comes to language, infants are pre-wired to learn. They actually form connections and grow new brain cells to process the particular languages they are exposed to. Bilingual children tend to actually have measurably larger brains with denser grey matter than their monolingual peers. This extra brain power has been shown to give these children an advantage later in life in such areas as logic and math. (Note that similar advantages have been shown to result from early music exposure).
The Window of Opportunity
As the child gets older, the brain's ability to restructure itself in this manner diminishes, and by a very early age (between 6 and 9 years old) the window has virtually closed. This is why young children the world over can learn one or more languages almost effortlessly, while older children and adults struggle to learn a second tongue and rarely become fluent or develop good accents. Furthermore, these latecomers experience far fewer of the brain functionality increases that the kids who started early enjoy.
Don't wait
We really hope you choose Music Lingua to help lay the foundation for a second language for your child. But whatever path you take, please start as early as possible!
"Any child can be developed, it depends on how you do it"
