The beliefs of giving a head start in children’s learning a new language, debunking the critical period hypothesis here, off of the Front Page Sections, translated…
The Legislature suggested the government becomes more lenient to allowing children to get an early start in English in the preschool years, actually, this signing-into-law, is, merely, legalizing what’s already, been done since a long time! A lot of the dual-language preschools are, already teaching the young children English!
Do we, start learning English in kindergarten, there are, supporter of both sides. I personally believe, that learning a foreign language shouldn’t start too early, like for when my young daughter started attending a dual-language preschool, she’d started blurting out English conversations at home, it’d, sounded, amazing, but, in turn, all of those phrases, she’d, memorized them rote, and, she’d not understood the usages at all.
Based off of my experiences these past couple of years, there’s no need to learn English too early, because what children learned in kindergarten, all the materials will be covered again later on as the children get older, Wu (from the Chiayi University’s Early Childhood Education Graduate Department) wrote her thesis about it, that early introduction to a foreign language will help the children have less interferences in learning, and, at most, the children are only, more articulate speakers, but, they’d learned quickly, and forgotten what they’d picked up even quicker.
As English education gets implemented in kindergarten, some children are sent to the outside English classes, while some started learning the foreign language at third grade, and, there would be, this huge gap between the students. In order to make sure their kids don’t lose to other people’s children at the starting lines, the parents needed to spend a whole lot more money, and energies, on making their children learn English, and, it would, burden the parents, even more.
Wu’s thesis also stated, that if the critical period hypothesis is valid, what you can be certain, is not to start learning a new language after puberty, in other words, so long as you start getting the children into the foreign language learning processes before they hit puberty, learning a new language is never too late. I believe, that having a good teacher is the key, like my high school English instructor, who’d had a perfect pronunciation, and, the cram school instructors are really good in grammar, and, had picked the students to recite the texts aloud in class, and so, every time before class, I’d, made sure I’d, practiced saying the texts aloud, and even IF I didn’t have a foreign instructor, I’d, still learned English well enough.
And, from my own experiences, read more, listen more, and write more, even though, I’d not had any English courses after school, I’d still continue to expose myself to the language, so I don’t forget it. And, I believe, that having a strong foundation in Chinese is, absolutely necessary. If you can’t manage Chinese well enough, how will you, learn English? So, you must, start reading at a very young age, in whatever language, just get yourself immersed in the language that, is all it takes.
And I would, strongly encourage everybody, to fight for the opportunities to go abroad for business meetings, to study, or to work-vacate, this is a great chance, to make sure you advance quickly, in a foreign language. While I was working in the U.S. and studying, my classmates, my patients all helped me with my learning English, and so, I believe, that having a head start in learning English isn’t absolutely necessary, so long as you put your minds into it, you can, have the results you want.
And so, it’s all, because of all the language acquisition theories such as the critical period HYPOTHESIS (note: this isn’t EVEN a theory yet!!!), that the parents are, going CRAZY, wanting to place their young in foreign language programs, without realizing, that if their children hadn’t mastered their mother tongues, they may all become, M-U-T-E (at a loss for words???), and, there’s, JUST no need, to FORCE your children to pick up a new language, and, if you really CARE about giving your young a homing advantage, just start speaking your own language at home with them, if it’s not English and, they’ll do great I’m sure!!!
Life, the Obstacle Course 