Learning Language Is Child's Play

Overwhelmingly, recent research has shown that children who are bilingual outperform those who speak only one language. Learning a second language enhances the child's capacity to learn in all subjects.

However, many parents fear that teaching a young child a second language hinders their progress in their first language. Research at the University of Toronto shows that the acquisition of each language is processed in the brain at no expense to any other. "There's neural tissue that you're born with that is ready and in place to learn language," award-winning neuroscientist Laura-Ann Petitto explains of the findings. "And it can handle multiple languages." In fact, she continues, exposure at an early age is one of the three most important factors to helping someone easily acquire a second, third, fourth, or even fifth language. Yet countless education systems around the world ignore the growing evidence supporting this conclusion, often forcing students to wait until later grades to study a second language.

Helping children to become bilingual or polyglot (knowing multiple languages) is one of the best ways to improve their performance in all school subjects. On a more basic level, Petitto says, being fluent in more than one language can also give people the chance to express themselves in ways they couldn't otherwise, which can actually bring us closer to other people. "Human language is the quintessential way in which we harness our inner world – our emotional world," she says. "It's how we share that world with someone else."

Personal note: I've written earlier about my own ongoing efforts to learn Tagalog and Mandarin Chinese. I can testify to the fact that even as an adult learner, learning a second language widens the world you can communicate and interact with considerably!