Starting Young

There is no one way to learn a language, but there are good ways and bad ways. The Conversation held a study in which they tracked over 100 4th grade students in second language classes. For the first semester of school, they were all taught different languages, and for the second semester, the students were all taught French. The French class was taught with a “focus on form” method. Students were asked to think about sentence structure and use their language-analytic skills. The Conversation found that it was not memory that was important in language learning, but the language-analytic ability and phonological awareness. Also, considering that the subjects were children, they probably had an easier time learning languages than an adult would (Roehr-Brackin and Tellier).

There is evidence that children who start learning a second language receive many benefits in life. Some sources say that a second language should be taught as early as 1 year of age. Of course, there is an obvious benefit, the ability to communicate with more people. However, learning a second language shows benefits in problem-solving. The College Board found that students who took 4 years of a foreign language scored higher on the SAT than those who didn’t. There isn’t evidence that a foreign language inhibits the development of a first language, in fact, it strengthens the first language. There are many ways to teach children a second language in school. Some programs teach whole subjects in foreign languages, rather than treating the language as a separate entity (Why, How).