An immigrant family moves to the United States, none of its members able to

speak English. The father, who is to begin teaching in a distinguished

American college as soon as his English is adequate, struggles hard to become fluent,

but can’t lose his thick accent. His wife is less successful, despite taking

classes in English.

But their 5-year-old son picks up English effortlessly, and without a trace

of accent, on the playground, in preschool, from the baby-sitter, everywhere

he goes. He will be comfortably bilingual when he enters 1st grade and for the

rest of his life.

It has been obvious as long as this country has had non-English speaking

immigrants that the younger the newcomers , the easier they learn a second

language. Yet most American school systems still insist on waiting until kids get to

high school before trying to teach them a foreign language.

More than three decades ago, the great Canadian neurologist Dr. Wilder

Penfield pointed out that “a child’s brain has a specialized capacity for learning

languages - a capacity that decreases with the passage of years,” because of

changes in the developing brain as it loses its early plasticity.

During the first years of life, a child programs his brain with the phonemes

- or basic phonetic sounds - of the language he hears all around him. Then he

uses these basic units to form words and sentences and to connect with other

nerve cells concerned with motor activity, thinking and other intellectual

functions.

If he is casually exposed to a second language, a child learns that too,

programming its basic sounds into his developing brain as he does his native

tongue. He will be able to speak both languages easily, with the accent he hears

about him, and to switch effortlessly from one to another.

But after the age of 10 or 12, said Penfield, a child’s brain can no longer

encode new basic language units in the same way. If he tries to learn a second

language as a teenager or adult, he must do it with the language programming

already in his brain. He will have to use a mental translation process, and

will speak the second language with the accent of his native tongue.

Few educators in the United States paid any attention - either to Penfield’s

explanations or to the easily observable fact that small children can learn a

second language effortlessly while it is much more difficult for teens and

adults.

Most American school systems continue to teach a foreign language primarily

in high school, years after the brain has lost its ability to learn a new

language easily. It’s hard going for most students. And much of what they do

learn is soon forgotten once school is over.

Many bilingual programs for students whose native language is not English

also ignore research about how the brain learns language. They tend to drag out

the transition to English for years, frittering away the time when it’s

easiest to learn a second language and failing to use the immersion method (Penfield

calls it the “mother’s method”) that is most effective.

Comes now a fascinating new study that adds some neurological confirmation to

the observations about language learning, to which we should have been paying

attention.

Using new functional magnetic resonance imaging techniques to map brain

activity in healthy bilingual adults, researchers at Memorial Sloan-Kettering

Cancer Center in New York found important differences based on the age at which the

second language was acquired. The results are published in the current issue

of the scientific journal Nature.

The brains of the adults who had learned two languages as very young children

stored both languages together in the same area of the brain, researchers

found. Those who acquired a second language in adolescence used a second region

of the brain near the first, but separate.

The research suggests that while babies and preschoolers learn the language,

or languages, in their environment without apparent effort and their brain

encodes them into hardwired neuronal circuits, the process is different when

adolescents and adults learn a second language. They must use a different - and

more difficult - process to learn and retain the information.

Learning a second language later in life is fundamentally different than

acquiring it early, explained Dr. Joy Hirsh, the chief investigator. The study

did not answer the question of when time runs out to encode a second language in

the brain’s primary language area. But other researchers have suggested

that unless an individual learns a second language before adolescence, it is

almost impossible to become as fluent as a native speaker.

So why do we usually wait until high school to teach our kids a foreign

language?

Even though the use of functional magnetic resonance imaging to map brain

activity is cutting-edge science, we have had centuries of experience watching

non- English speaking newcomers to this country learn language. And most of us

know, from personal experience, how difficult it is to learn a foreign

languasge in high school or college.

The occasional experiment in trying to introduce a second language in a

kindergarten or elementary school has rarely worked. Too often the teacher does

not have a mastery of the second language and does not use the direct or

“mother’s method” so it turns out to be a waste of time. Coloring books or tapes

in a second language usually don’t work either.

But surely American educators must be smart enough to figure out how to teach

children a second language easily and effectively - despite all the evidence

that they have been doing it wrong for decades. What are they waiting for?

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Kent Jones

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1. Research suggests that learning a second language at an early age can enrich mental development. 
-BUSINESS WEEK- Edward Baig: BRINGING UP BABY - BILINGUALLY. 25 August 1997

2. The learning of languages other than one’s own also provides a unique conduit to higher-order thinking skills. From the early stages of learning, students move from a representational knowledge base to comparison, synthesis, and hypothesis, all elements of higher -order thinking skills. - ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY OF POLITICAL & SOCIAL SCIENCE, C. Brown. 1994

3. “When children are learning a new language they become more aware of how language functions,” says Gisela Ernst, an associate professor of education at Washington State University. ... Studies have shown that children who receive even small amounts of second-language instruction are more creative and are better at solving complex problems.SMARTKID ON-LINE. July, 1997

4. Students of foreign languages score statistically higher on standardized tests conducted in English. In its 1992 report, “College Bound Seniors: The 1992 Profile of SAT and Achievement Test Takers, “ the College Entrance Examination Boards reported that students who averaged 4 or more years of foreign language study scored higher on the verbal section of the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) than those who had studied 4 or more years in any other study area. -ERIC CLEARINGHOUSE ON LANGUAGES AND LINGUISTICS, K.Marcos. 1997 

5. Foreign language learning appears to enhance cognitive development and basic skills performance in elementary school children. .. . This idea that exposure to “foreignness” can lead to cognitive change was well known to Piaget; he believed that cognitive development takes place when a child is faced with an idea or experience that does not fit into his or her realm of understanding. - CENTER FOR APPL IED LINGUISTICS, H. Curtain. December 1990

1. We now know that if children are to learn to speak a second language like a native, they should be introduced to the language by age ten. Mastering an additional language is still possible after this point , but the window of opportunity for easy acquisition is gone.
- YOUNG CHILDREN, J. Newberger: NEW BRAIN DEVELOPMENT RESEARCH, May, 1997

2. Scientists argue that children are capable of far more at younger ages than schools generally realize. People obviously continue learning their whole lives, but the optimum “windows of opportunity for learning” last until about the age of 10 or 12, says Harry Chugani of Wayne State University’s Children’s Hospital of Michigan. ... Complex subjects such as trigonometry or foreign language shouldn’t wait for puberty to be introduced. In fact, Chugani says, it’s far easier for an elementary-school child to hear and process a second language - and even speak it without an accent. Yet most U. S. districts wait until junior high to introduce Spanish or French - after the “windows” are closed.
-NEWSWEEK - S. Begley, YOUR CHILD’S BRAIN. 19 February 1996

3. There is abundant evidence that the best time to learn a new language is relatively early in life.
- PEDIATRICS - American Academy of Pediatrics. July 1995

4. “We are born with a greater brain capacity than we actually utilize,” says Pasco Rakic, professor of neuroscience at Yale University. “If connections that enable certain functions are not utilized, they are eliminated..” This process, called “pruning,” makes the brain more efficient, but it can also preclude easy mastery of specific mental skills later in life. For example, the dendrites that support hearing continue to develop until around age 10, which is why young children pick up a second language so easily. After 10, the mental work is harder because they’re trying to learn another language with mental circuitry customized for English. 
- WORKING MOTHER, C. Jabs, YOUR BABY’S BRAIN POWER. November, 1996

1. It is common knowledge that the “errors” a child makes when learning its native language consist of extending a pattern to an area of irregularity in the language. Like, “I doed it. “ ‘‘It’s funner!” “Two mouses, gooses, childs or tooths.” With exposure to actual usage, the child’s logical words will become the illogical forms: did, more fun, mice, geese, children, and teeth., The problem is that there is no way to tell when to use which.

2. Theoretical physicist Gordon L. Shaw at the University of California at Irvine noticed that babies like orderly music. Asked if the reason babies dislike jumbled-up Mozart means they prefer order to chaos, he said yes. That, along with our work on patterns, gave us the idea that maybe music is really tapping into an inherent structure in the brain. So, we ... predicted that early music training could exercise the brain’s inherent ability to form patterns and enhance spacial reasoning...

- CHICAGO TRIBUNE - Interview by Ronald Kotulak. PERSPECTIVE. 24 May 1998

DRAWING A CONCLUSION FROM THE POINTS ABOVE:

An ORDERLY second language should be taught before age 10 to 12 years in order to perfect the brain, as well as to enhance communication skill. Because Esperanto has an orderly grammar, children can learn it in 2 years, compared to 6 years for other languages. It should be part of every language arts program.

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Kent Jones, 5048 N. Marine Drive, D6, Chicago, IL 60640 Tel: 773/ 271 - 8673; FAX: 773 / 561 - 6582; e - mail: kentjones9@aol.com

ADDENDA

“All American children must grow up fully proficient in English, and all should have the opportunity to learn an additional language as well. If they are to understand the nature of language, they must be exposed to a comparative dimension, i.e., to understand their own, they must see how another language functions. If the subject of “ language arts” is supposed to familiarize students with the structure of language, but the phenomenon of communication is examined from within the boundaries of only one language, the investigator can take no critical distance from the subject.”

Kurt E. Muller, LANGUAGE EDUCATION FOR CHILDREN

“Achieving proficiency in a foreign language ordinarily requires from 4 to 6 years of study and should, therefore, be started in the elementary grades. We believe it is desirable that students achieve such proficiency because study of a foreign language introduces students to non-English-speaking cultures, heightens awareness and comprehension of one’s native tongue, and serves the Nation’s needs in commerce, diplomacy, defense, and education.” National Commission on Excellence in Education. 

A NATION AT RISK

“Research has documented that the study of a second language during the elementary years may positively affect the young child’s “general school achievement and linguistic progress” (Donoghue, Potts, Smith). It can also promote superior progress in high school language study and may result in a significantly higher gain in mental maturity compared to that realized by non-FLES students during the same period (Brega, Donoghue, Vovolo). Learning a foreign language in elementary school also appears to promote language awareness. Robert J. DiPietro of the University of Delaware reports that “the study of foreign languages does indeed help children learn to read better in English” (Kindig 64-65). Other benefits of second-language study include greater critical-thinking ability, better mental discipline, and more refined levels of mental dexterity( Wiley), and higher measures of flexibility and creativity (Jarvis).

Patricia Davis Wiley. A MODEL FOREIGN LANGUAGE EXPERIENCE PROGRAM FOR THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL.

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A COMPARISON OF RESULTS ON THE IOWA TESTS OF BASIC SKILLS

 LEX = Limited Foreign Language Experience

Gladys Lipton. THE PUBLIC LOVES FOREIGN LANGUAGES FOR CHILDEN

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In a message dated 10/23/03 12:57:16 PM, ANDREWST@uthscsa.edu writes:

<< Dear Mr. Jones,

I am writing to you today regarding the "2002-2003 Educational Report" in the "ELNA-Jarraportoj 2003", which I received yesterday. I was very interested in your proposal concerning early second language training, but I have a question about one part. The first step of the "logic pathway" you described is "second language should occur before age 12 according to MRI scans of brains". Could you please provide references for the published scientific papers that prove this? Since this is the basis of the entire argument for this ambitious project, it should be convincingly supported by scientific evidence.

Thanks in advance for your help with this.

Sincerely,

Trevor Andrews 
Research Imanging Center 
University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio 
San Antonio, TX