The Importance Of Learning A Second Language

The United States is becoming more and more bilingual every day. It is important for students of the United States of America to keep up with the advancing world. The easiest way to learn a second language is when a person is young. This is why it would be beneficial for schools to start teaching a foreign language in kindergarten and continuing it through twelfth grade. Students are more likely to learn and remember a foreign language if they are introduced to it at a young age. A majority of other countries teach foreign languages to their students throughout their school lives. Most students coming out of high school in other countries are totally

After watching this, I now feel that it would be very beneficial for a child to learn a second language because like the video says, it opens up more future opportunities for the child. In the article, “Chinese, English, Spanish” by Tom McArthur, it talks about how English is one of the most popular languages today, and how variations of English can be heard or read almost everywhere. Although English is a very popular language, it is always an advantage to know other languages. In the video, it states that knowing just English is actually a limitation in life because so many jobs want bilingual

Language is an important part of our lives. I remember when I arrived to USA I could speak a little English. I went to school to improve my language, reading and writing skills; even now I am learning my second language, without English I cannot survive in this new environment. Now I am raising my own kids and I want them to have this important skill, this privilege of knowing a second language, language of their parents and grandparents. By looking at studies of bilingual children, research shows how important it is for a child to learn a second language. Raising a bilingual child is a benefit because it improves social skills, academic proficiency, introduces child to a different culture, and prepares for the future.

The benefits of learning a foreign language go beyond learning a different culture or being able to communicate with people of different backgrounds. It is essential that Americans speak languages other than English in order to compete internationally, keep the country safe, and prepare children to be world citizens. Several language organizations, educators, and policy makers have recommended the introduction of a second language at the elementary school level as a way of assuring a high level of language proficiency (Pufahl and Rhodes 273).

By many researchers, it has been hypothesized that language could be acquired only within a critical period, which is from early infancy to puberty. If this is true, this should be extended to second language acquisition as well, and, if so, young children should be better at acquiring the second language than adults, and younger children should reach higher levels of proficiency in the second language. If this prediction is true, it would importantly demonstrate that children should be exposed to language with rich vocabulary and grammar within the critical period, and foreign language exposure at school should take place in early grades in order to maximize their opportunity to learn the language effectively. However, the motivation and the purpose of learning the target language may differ depending on the individuals and those factors can limit or expand the exposure to the target language. In this paper, I would like to discuss the correlation between the age that bilingual individuals are exposed to the second language as well as their motivation, purpose, and value of learning the second language. I would like to suggest that regardless of the age that individuals are exposed to the second language, if one values the importance of learning the second language and maximize their exposure to the targeted language, they can reach to the native level of proficiency in that language.

Linguists may support beginning instruction in a second language in elementary school rather than high school because childhood is a critical stage for development of language, this means that is easier to learn a second language during ages three and ten because a person is developing fluency and pronunciation in any particular language. If a person is older is going to be more difficult to have a good structure of a particular language and is not anymore an important period for language acquisition, also a person maybe is not going to have the fluency and pronunciation to sound like a native language. Although it is adequate to do it in the proper stage, the benefits of being bilingual never stops and can give a variety of opportunities in

In most other countries, children begin learning a second language very early in their schooling. Most American schools, however, do not begin foreign language instruction until middle or high school. It is clear to see the detrimental effects of this. If you ask anyone who took a foreign language class in high school, chances are that they have retained none of it, unless they continued to study it in college. This is because by the teenage years, it is much harder for the human brain to learn a second language. If more schools began teaching a second language in elementary schools, it is more likely that students will retain more language skills. As a result, more individuals will have the language skills required in this global market to succeed with international relations and

Studies have shown that knowing multiple languages does not stop diseases, such as dementia, but can slow the effects. If two people had dementia, but only one of them spoke a foreign language, the one who spoke a foreign language would retain their memory for a longer time. It would be as if the person was diagnosed with dementia five years later than the other person who was not bilingual (bbc.com). This proves that taking a foreign language in high school should be required so that later in life a person can at least acquire some of the good benefits that will help keep them healthy. Scientists have also found that learning a second language can reduce a person’s chances of having a stroke. However, if a person who knows multiple languages does have one, chances are they are twice as likely to recover from it than a person who is not bilingual (bbc.com). This shows that acquiring multiple ways of communication in the world allows for a longer, healthier, more meaningful life. Conclusively, knowing a second language gives someone a better chance at having an array of advantages, including a longer, healthful

In summary, parents should not be too worry about their billingual children lagging behind in terms language development as eventually, they will be able to catch up with the monolingual peers. In addition, learning multiple languages actually helps to develop their thinking and innovative skills which will be helpful in the long run. Also, learning multiple languages give them a headstart in terms of learning another new language in the future as some languages are very similar in terms of their prounciation and

There is a rising issue in today’s education system to whether or not we need to require and when the education system should start the second language learning in the school system. Some say that education system should wait until the students have reached high school and others say to start it young. Other school officials have said that they should require it in high school because they’ll remember the language better. Experts say that the education system needs to start it young while the child’s brain is like a sponge. The answer to this question is to simply start the foreign language learning young during their childhood which is why all the state education systems should require a foreign language class during the elementary years

The United States embraces a medley of numerous languages. From Spanish to German, many people in the U.S. speak another language or have been taught another language during their academic careers. Furthermore, language immersion begins either in middle school or high school. Schools offer a wide variety of languages, from Arabic to German, to their students. Over the years, studies have shown that learning a new language improves the brain’s memory and other cerebral skills. In addition, studies have shown that the bilingual brain possesses better cognitive skills than the monolingual brain. Moreover, some studies show that if students learned foreign languages at a younger age, it would benefit them even more. Therefore, should foreign languages be introduced to students at a younger age? After analyzing the scientific, cultural, academic, and artistic aspects of bilingualism at a younger age, the benefits of being bilingual at a younger age aid students in the long run, neurologically, and can possibly increase their IQ.

However, when learning another language as an adult it can be slow and extremely laborious.In the teenage brain, the speech centers are in the left hemisphere. Also, in teenagers the left side of the face reveals more emotion than the right. Unlike children, teenagers learn a language deliberately(Locke 1994). Similarly to children, the best way to learn a language is through exposure. “There are a number of behavioral studies which have demonstrated the human ability to learn non-adjacent dependencies by mere exposure to artificial or natural speech” (Mueller 2009). BMC Neuroscience conducted a study on teenager language learners while using a statistical learning technique. “Statistical learning is a domain-general mechanism that is involved in a diverse set of sequential situations, such as learning a small artificial grammar, sequences of tones, and nonsense words from continuous speech”(Cunillera, T 2008). Meaning that the technique is more hands-on learning rather than studying flashcards. The present examination demonstrates that teenagers can incorporate particular prosodic and statistical prompts while dividing speech. When studying how bilingualism affects the brain, scientists found evidence which suggests that some brain areas that are involved in language control differentiate first language and second language use. For teenagers, bilingualism can affect the performance in the first language. Also, word meaning in a

When learning a foreign language you have hundreds of options, you could learn any language from French, to sign language, to Spanish, the possibilities are endless. There are long term benefits to learning a foreign language. Some may say that this is too difficult for kindergartners, or “Why should the student be required to learn a foreign language if they might not even travel?”. As some of you may know, I had a poll sent out on my topic, It looked a little like this. And I am here do everything in my power to convince the 47.5% of you who disagree with me or are unsure about how important foreign language is, and how it is best to learn it in kindergarten.

Should foreign language be mandatory in elementary schools? Many people learn a foreign language to gain a better knowledge of other cultures, as well as their own. A foreign language can help one’s communication skills develop throughout the course, as well as other courses they are studying. Languages are typically learned during school and there are multiple different studies based on the benefits of studying language at an early age. I chose this topic because I want to be an Elementary School teacher, and many elementary schools offer foreign language programs for their students, starting at very young ages and transferring throughout each grade. Some programs include dual-language, FLES and FLEX, which are all beneficial to the students involved in the programs.

Many researchers have hypothesized that language could be acquired only within a critical period, which is from early infancy to puberty. If this is true, this should be extended to second language acquisition as well, and, if so, young children should be better at acquiring the second language than adults, and the individuals who started to learn the second language in their early childhood should reach higher levels of proficiency in the second language compare to those who started to learn the language in their adulthood. If this prediction is true, it would importantly demonstrate that children should be exposed to language with rich vocabulary and grammar within the critical period, and foreign language exposure at school should take place in early grades in order to maximize their opportunity to learn the language effectively. However, the self-motivation and the value of learning the language may differ depending on the individuals and those factors can limit or expand the exposure to the target language. In this paper, I would like to discuss the correlation between the age that bilingual individuals are exposed to the second language as well as their motivation, and the value of learning the second language. I would like to suggest that regardless of the age that individuals are exposed to the second language, if one values the importance of learning the target language and maximize their exposure to it, they can reach to the native level of proficiency in that language.