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Jul 21, 2009 6:59 pm US/Central
Babies Have Built-In Advantage For 2nd Language
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) ―
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It is almost magic how easy it is for small children to pick up a second language. Researchers have found that babies are born with the ability to learn two languages at once. (File)
CBS
Grown-ups are better than kids at a lot of things, but not learning language.
Research has found that a second language comes very easy for children. In fact, the younger, the better. Unfortunately, our country's schools are cutting back in this area.
The Center for Applied Linguistics has published preliminary survey results on its website. It found in 1997 one-fourth of elementary schools offered foreign language instruction. Last year, only 15 percent did.
At Jardin Magico day care and preschool in south Minneapolis, there are 126 bilingual learners. They learn what most preschoolers learn like shapes, colors, and the ABCs, but they learn it in Spanish.
"Do you even know what the name is? Jardin Magico. Do you know what that means?" asked five-year-old Liam. "The magic garden."
It is almost magic how easy it is for small children to pick up a second language. Researchers have found that babies are born with the ability to learn two languages at once. A bilingual preschooler can learn two languages in the time it takes another child to learn only one.
"It's second nature to children. Children's brains are hardwired to learn language in the first three years of life," said Natalie Lopez, the director of Jardin Magico.
The waiting list for the school is 350 kids long. It can take almost a year to get into the center. Lopez and her husband plan to open a second location next year.
"There are five Chinese immersion schools now in the Twin Cities area just for the learning of Chinese," said Elaine Tarone, director of CARLA, the Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition at the U of M.
"If you want to pronounce the language and sound like a native speaker then you need to start very early," said Tarone.
Tarone thinks that children need to start before the sixth grade.
Otherwise, said Tarone, "You may sound like Arnold Schwarzenegger or may sound like Henry Kissinger. You can still acquire excellent grammar and vocabulary and be very, very fluent in the language. You just won't sound like a native speaker."
Tarone doesn't want older kids or grown ups to be discouraged by the research. She says it doesn't matter if you're seven or seventy. It's never too late to learn a second language.
Paula Engelking, Producer
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(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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