Based off of SCIENTIFIC research, parents, from the Front Page Sections, translated…
A lot of parents believed, that if they exposed their young to English at an earlier age, then, their children would become excellent in the language. But, the professor, Wu, from the Cognitive Neuroscience Department of the Central University had found proofs otherwise. Studies found, that although exposing children to a second language at an earlier age will help them use the second language like their mother tongue, but, it doesn’t necessarily mean, that the children will perform better, “Too much linguistic stimulations can cause the child to become confused.”
Wu stated, that there are proofs, of which part of the brain is most active, when reading in various languages, but, the “mother tongue” and the “second language”, whether or not the process of learning is the same for both, there’s still researches needed. There are, studies that showed, that the earlier a child is exposed to a second language, the area activated when the mother tongue is spoken would be closer to the area that’s activated as the second language is used; the later the learning occurs, there would be, an alternative way that the brain would process the information, but, the researchers are still debating on which one is best.
A lot of parents held firmly to the beliefs of “the abilities for foreign languages should start at a very young age”. Wu said, if the child is exposed to a second language at an earlier age, the blending of the first and the second language would occur sooner, but doesn’t necessarily mean, that the child would become outstanding in the foreign languages. There’s a set volume to how much information a child can take in in the process of development, if the child wasn’t exposed to a second language in the families, but through the early start of cram school sessions, although they’d be able to pick up on more languages, but, for the students who are taking up Chinese and English at the same time, their abilities may not be as complete as the students who are just, focused on learning just one language; and they’d needed to spend more time, to master both the languages.
She suggested, that language acquisition should “come naturally”, that the early exposures to a foreign language doesn’t need to come in childhood, that even if the child picks up English at school age, and used different areas of the brain to process it compared to their mother tongue, it doesn’t mean, that the children will be worse off in learning.
And so, this, would be a myth-buster, for ALL the parents who want to sign their kids up for that early head start program in English or whatever foreign language you may want your kid to pick up on, just go with the natural flow of things, and, if your kid’s supposed to pick up a foreign language, then, s/he will, you pushing your young to take in that early head start lesson at the English academy won’t help.
Life, the Obstacle Course 