Frequently Asked Questions About Immersion
There are many resources that cover language development and the effects of learning a second language. We have assembled a collection that addresses some of the common questions that arise as families consider their path for preschool. If you have any that have been helpful for you, please share them with us! (Please click on the titles to see the source references for these excerpts)
Is preschool too early to start an immersion program?
How much? How soon?
[This is why we give priority to our School Day and Full Day students. The more time the child spends immersed, the greater the language acquisition.]
Does learning a second language increase language delay?
Will learning a second language confuse my child?
Will children who are learning to read in English be confused if they are also being taught to read in another language?
Is preschool too early to start an immersion program?
- The child's brain is different from the adult brain in that it is a very dynamic structure that is evolving. A two-year-old child has twice as many synapses (connections) in the brain as an adult. The young brain must use these connections or lose them. Thus, failure to learn a skill during a critical or sensitive period has important significance. According to Dr. Michael Phelps, Chairman of the Department of Molecular and Medical Pharmacology of the UCLA School of Medicine, the learning experiences of the child determine which connections are developed and which will no longer function.
- Dr. Patricia Kuhl, a Speech Scientist at the University of Washington, reports that babies are born "citizens of the world" in that they can distinguish differences among sounds (temporal, spectral, and duration cues) borrowed from all languages. They are ready to learn any language they hear, but by six months of age, they start to specialize in their native language.
- Dr. Susan Curtiss, Professor of Linguistics at UCLA, who studies the way children learn languages, notes that in language development there is a window of opportunity in which the child learns that first language normally. After this period, the brain becomes slowly less plastic and by the time the child reaches adolescence, the brain cannot develop "richly and normally any real cognitive system, including language."
- The four- or five-year old learning a second language is a "perfect model for the idea of the critical period." According to Dr. Curtiss: ...the power to learn language is so great in the young child that it doesn't seem to matter how many languages you seem to throw their way...They can learn as many spoken languages as you can allow them to hear systematically and regularly at the same time. Children just have this capacity. Their brain is just ripe to do this...there doesn't seem to be any detriment to...develop(ing) several languages at the same time.
How much? How soon?
- Holman stressed the advantages of learning foreign languages as early as possible. She cited the benefits in other areas of study, as well as recent neurobiological research that strongly suggested that the best time to learn a second or third language is before age 10. Holman also emphasized that adequate time must be devoted to language study in order to achieve the desired results; She quoted Dr. Lightbrown of Concordia University as saying, “Twenty minutes three times a week is not a very effective way to acquire a language, no matter when you start.”
[This is why we give priority to our School Day and Full Day students. The more time the child spends immersed, the greater the language acquisition.]
Does learning a second language increase language delay?
- Although many parents believe that bilingualism results in language delay, research suggests that monolingual and bilingual children meet major language developmental milestones at similar times.
- There is no scientific evidence to date that hearing two or more languages leads to delays or disorders in language acquisition. Many, many children throughout the world grow up with two or more languages from infancy without showing any signs of language delays or disorders. These children provide visible proof that there is no causal relationship between a bilingual environment and language learning problems
Will learning a second language confuse my child?
- Despite many parents' fear that using two languages will result in confusion for their children, there is no research evidence to support this. On the contrary, use of two languages in the same conversation has been found to be a sign of mastery of both languages.
Will children who are learning to read in English be confused if they are also being taught to read in another language?
- On the contrary. Research shows that second language study helps enhance English and other academic skills. For example, a recent study of the reading ability of 134 four- and five-year-old children found that bilingual children understood better than monolingual children the general symbolic representation of print (Bialystok, 1997). Another study analyzed achievement test data of students in Fairfax County, Virginia, who had participated for five years in immersion—the most intensive type of foreign language program. The study concluded that those students scored as well as or better than all comparison groups on achievement tests and that they remained high academic achievers throughout their schooling (Thomas, Collier, and Abbott, 1993). …. Numerous other studies have also shown a positive relationship between foreign language study and English language arts achievement (Barik and Swain, 1975; Genesee, 1987; Swain, 1981).
