Why english from childhood?

The learning of two languages by a child that lives in a country where bilingualism or multilingualism is considered the norm, is not considered in any way an exceptional phenomenon. Research demonstrates that the best years for learning a foreign language are from birth up to the age of seven/eight years, the period in which the nervous system reaches maturity. There are many reasons for believing that the learning of a second language at a very early age proves to be particularly convenient.

Physiological motives
From birth we are able to perceive/understand the sounds of any language. With the passage of time this situation changes; The human hearing starts to become capable of perceiving correctly only those sounds that had been heard in the first years of infancy. The common sounds between two languages - the mother tongue and the foreign language - are perceived correctly whilst the different sounds become altered and perceived as a phoneme of the mother tongue which they most resemble. This tendency to alter or deform the sounds of the foreign language to insert them in the phonological system of the mother tongue shows itself towards the age of six and consolidates itself progressively until it becomes systematic towards the age of nine. Therefore the sooner the child starts to hear a foreign language the easier for him to understand and reproduce it correctly. According to the majority of researches the crucial period for the acquisition of a language concludes with the finalization of the nervous system, that is towards the age of seven or eight: upto that point the brain exhibits a certain ‘plasticity’ and can receive/absorb another language, or rather, according to most researches the brain structures of children are so flexible that they can learn with the same facility one, two or even three supplementary languages.

Psycholinguistic motives    
Research indicates that children who understand more than one language are able to think with more flexibility and creativity. Bilingualism gives a greater capacity for divergent thinking, in other words the thought processes that examine many possible solutions and therefore elaborate creative ideas. Bilingualism favours the capacity to reason and above all the speed of learning; passively training the mind during the first months of life, the bilingual children find it easier to store information and to reason. To speak a second language, or at least to have contact before the age of five, gives a child the possibility to develop ability,  more sophisticated ways of thinking and expression compared to a child that speaks a single language. The bilingual child is able to understand the symbolical sense of words and to reason more quickly.       

Cultural motives           
Bilingualism favours understanding, tolerance and open-mindedness towards other populations and other styles of life, amplifies the vision and prospective of the world, allows one to feel comfortable with different types of people and in the most diverse situations.

 

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