On a drizzly winter morning, a parent with a young girl passed by our slightly soggy promotional stall.
“Interested in learning Chinese?” my colleague asked enthusiastically.
“Nope, we are still learning English!” The parent had responded confidently and with no hesitation.
It’s not the first time I’d heard a reply like this. But even so the remark affected me deeply. It betrays a fundamental – though, I suppose, explicable – lack of understanding about second language acquisition. Parent and child moved on without stopping, but if they’d taken a moment to listen, I would have explained the gist of what follows in this note.
The parent’s response reveals the view that young children, still in the process of learning the building blocks of their native language, would be wasting their time (and their parents’ money!) trying to learn a second language simultaneously. How can a child struggling to grasp English also take on the burden of learning Chinese? It might even infer that learning a second language could actively inhibit the development progress of the child’s native language.
The reason for my emotive reaction is that the premise is fundamentally misconceived. But what gives rise to the misconception? Perhaps it’s what we are able to see at a superficial level.
Children learn languages in the context of their environments. For a bilingual child, he will not usually master fully equivalent vocabularies in both languages, but will adopt and apply words based on the contexts in which he communicates. For example, if a child speaks French at home, he will likely learn words relating to the home environment – table, TV, bowl, t-shirt etc – in French. If he attends school in England, he’ll probably learn school-related words – classroom, pencil, whiteboard, desk – in English. There will of course be words that he uses in both environments. The way he expands vocabulary in both languages rapidly often goes unnoticed. But if he cannot say “whiteboard” in French or “apron” in English, it is easy to suggest that bilingualism is the reason.
Further, any mild delays experienced by a bilingual child are usually in “expressive” language, which means that the bilingual child might have a normal level of language comprehension, but experiences a temporary delay in speaking the language when compared to monolingual children of the same age. Is this because a bilingual child is learning twice the amount of information? Is it a question of memorisation capacity? Or could it be because a child hasn’t had enough time to practice each language? Whatever it is, it is certain that these delays in “expressive” language usually disappear before children reach 5 years old.
It is now widely understood that there is a window of time during which language acquisition occurs most easily and beyond which it becomes more challenging. This is known as the Critical Period Hypothesis (CPH). For second languages, this window is generally believed to extend until around puberty. Children are particularly adept at learning new languages – and native-like pronunciation – before the age of 7. Young children’s brains are highly plastic, meaning they can form new neural connections more easily. This plasticity supports the acquisition of new languages.
We can illustrate the point another way. The most common developmental challenge – delayed speech – affects between 5-10% of all children, irrespective of whether they are bilingual or monolingual learners. That could not be so if bilingualism were the root cause of developmental problems.
This statistic is consistent with the CPH, which we strongly endorse. It’s been pleasing to see so many parents encouraging their kids to begin their journey with us from as young as 3 years old. (That’s not to say all bets are off beyond the age of 7! It becomes more challenging as we get older, but that’s where ThinkChinese are here to help!)
Several studies now highlight the potential benefits of bilingualism on cognitive and linguistic abilities. Bilingualism is associated with various cognitive benefits including improved executive functions such as problem-solving, multitasking and attention control. These benefits are thought to arise from the mental management of two languages.
So, youth is no barrier to adopting a second language and rather than adversely impacting a child’s acquisition of his or her native language, it can actively improve cognitive functioning.