Showing posts with label speech development. Show all posts
Showing posts with label speech development. Show all posts

Monday, March 23, 2020

Learning more than one language


How does speech and language develop when different languages are spoken within one family?


Example#1

One parent is a native speaker of Greek and the other a native speaker of English. The child is born in a country where English or Greek is spoken. The parents can choose one of the two languages in which they will address each other, especially when they are all together as a family. But each parent should use his/her native language when addressing the child. This child will grow up to be bilingual, initially alternating languages even in the same sentence. He or she may make some mistakes, but as long as there are no other developmental issues, the child will master both languages. Most specialists suggest that each parent should use his/her native language when addressing the child, or “One Parent One Language”.


Example#2

A family moves to a foreign country. Here we have the “one environment-one language” model, so that the language used at home is different than the language used in school.


Example #3

One parent is a native speaker of Greek and the other a native speaker of English. The child is born in a country where natives speak Spanish. The parents can choose one language in which they will address each other, especially when they are all together as a family. But each parent should use his/her native language when addressing the child. The child will learn Spanish at school, through social contact with friends and others. As long as no learning or other difficulties exist, this child will grow up to be trilingual. He or she will be a native speaker in three languages. Of course if the child was not born in that foreign country, the time it will take to learn the third language will depend on his/her age.

Even if there are more languages involved in one family (other family members speaking different languages, moving to many different countries etc.), the basic rule of each parent using his/her native language when addressing the child is very important. This rule should apply at least until the child’s speech and language has fully developed.

There are of course more factors to be taken into account, such as the parent’s educational background and the exposure to each language. There may sometimes be a small delay in speech development due to input from many different languages, but this is to be expected and therefore completely normal.



What is the ideal age to learn a foreign language?

Even though there is no absolute answer, since there are many factors to consider, we can safely say that the correct approach to learning a second language is starting at a young age and continue the lessons until at least the end of puberty. After having learned a second language, it gets much easier to learn a third or even a fourth one. 


What factors affect how we learn foreign languages?


There are different factors at play while learning a foreign language and in every case different learning mechanisms apply.


Age

Researchers suggest that if our goal is the perfect accent and pronunciation, it’s better to start early (4-7 years old). Our hearing and listening skills are better when we’re young and so is the ability to imitate. The younger we are the less shy and the more confident we are, since people are more tolerant to our mistakes. We also learn faster through games and songs. If we learn a second language before the age of seven regardless of how good we are in spelling, verb tenses or syntax, chances are we’ll have the perfect accent and language comprehension.

Other researchers believe it’s better to start later (after 11 years of age), since we are already proficient in the structure and mechanisms of one language. We achieve a deeper understanding of rules and grammar.


Motivation

Teenagers or adults understand the benefits of being proficient in a second language, so they put more effort into learning it.


Learning difficulties or dyslexia


In cases of such difficulties the teacher may have to use different strategies and:

-prompt the children to record the lesson so they can listen to it multiple times.

-consider the use of visual aids, games and songs during the lessons.

-not force the children to speak, but encourage them instead to answer when the teacher believes they know the answer.

-discuss the foreign words and the summary of a new text, before they ask the student to read it.

-introduce new words and rules gradually.

-go through the same lesson many times.

-encourage and reward effort and accomplishment.



Besides having lessons, anybody learning a foreign language could try to:

-be in contact with native speakers.
-read foreign newspapers, magazines.
-listen to the news or watch movies without subtitles.   
-listen to songs and try understanding and learning the lyrics.