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Re: 選校兵法 子女太早入學有害？
See what they say about early second language learning!
ARTICLE 1 ……….
Learning a second language "boosts" brain-power, scientists believe.
Researchers from University College London studied the brains of 105 people - 80 of whom were bilingual.
They found learning other languages altered grey matter - the area of the brain which processes information - in the same way exercise builds muscles.
People who learned a second language at a younger age were also more likely to have more advanced grey matter than those who learned later, the team said.
Scientists already know the brain has the ability to change its structure as a result of stimulation - an effect known as plasticity - but this research demonstrates how learning languages develops it.
The team took scans of 25 Britons who did not speak a second language, 25 people who had learned another European language before the age of five and 33 bilinguals who had learned a second language between 10 and 15 years old.
The scans revealed the density of the grey matter in the left inferior parietal cortex of the brain was greater in bilinguals than in those without a second language.
The effect was particularly noticeable in the "early" bilinguals, the findings published in the journal Nature revealed.
The findings were also replicated in a study of 22 native Italian speakers who had learned English as a second language between the ages of two and 34.
Lead researcher Andrea Mechelli, of the Institute of Neurology at UCL, said the findings explained why younger people found it easier to learn second languages.
Impact
"It means that older learners won't be as fluent as people who learned earlier in life.
"They won't be as good as early bilinguals who learned, for example, before the age of five or before the age of 10."
But Cilt, the national centre for languages, cast doubt on whether learning languages was easier at a younger age.
A spokeswoman said: "There are conflicting views about the comparative impact of language learning in different age groups, based both on findings and anecdotal evidence."
However, she said it was important to get young people learning languages in the UK.
Only one in 10 UK workers can speak a foreign language, a recent survey revealed.
But by 2010 all primary schools will have to provide language lessons for children.
ARTICLE 2 ………
The benefits of early language learning
By Masarah Van Eyck for Madison Newspapers
Ask associate professor Jenny Saffran when a child should begin to learn a second language and she'll tell you that exposing newborns is not too early. Saffran, who studies how infants learn languages in the Department of Psychology and Waisman Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, says that kids learn a good deal about language even before they learn to talk. "At eight months, twelve months," she says, "babies have learned a tremendous amount about their native language." In fact, newborns show a preference to the rhythms of their mother's tongue over all others, implying that they can distinguish their native language straight out of the womb. Additional language acquisition begins immediately after birth. The benefits last a lifetime.
Children who have a grasp of two or more languages enjoy intellectual and social advantages throughout their lives. They are better problem solvers. They perform better on aptitude tests later in life. Multi-lingualism also fosters an international perspective, allowing for a better understanding of one's own culture as well as others. This translates into job opportunities and even, argues the National Network for Early Language Learning (NNELL) Web site, improved global relations. In an open letter to congress, NNELL asserts that early language learning is "imperative for national security," and cites a study that finds the Departments of State and Defense and the FBI suffering from "an acute shortage of language professionals within their ranks."
National security aside, multi-lingualism breeds tolerance. As Irene Geller Lugassy, associate professor of French in the Division of Continuing Studies at UW, asserts, early language learning exposes children "not only to a different language but also a different culture, and it encourages their understanding of diversity. That's something that's always needed," she adds. Learning a foreign language offers benefits at any age, of course, it's just easier to master before puberty.
Part of the reason why children more easily learn languages is simply the fact that, well, they think like kids. "[Children] absorb language and they love language," says Geller Lugassy. Because they are more playful, they end up learning languages indirectly through games and songs.
Thor Templin, a graduate student in the Department of German and the Department of Scandinavian Studies at UW, agrees. Templin, who has taught German to children from five to 14 years of age, says kids are less afraid to make mistakes. "With adults there's always that moment of hesitation where they're trying to process the grammar," he observes. "Adults have this problem where they want to know everything right away."
A lack of self-consciousness isn't the only reason why children easily absorb languages. While the physiological mechanisms of language acquisition are not well understood, one theory suggests that the brain is more malleable or plastic when we are young. Saffran likens the brain to real estate that hasn't yet been developed. As we learn, the brain becomes colonized and, once colonized, is harder to change.
As UW professor of psychology Mark Seidenberg explains, by the time our command of our first language is very good, usually by five or six years of age, our brain has lost the flexibility or plasticity to absorb others as easily. By pre-pubescence, around eight or ten years of age, learning languages becomes significantly more difficult.
Yet, Seidenberg maintains, children older than five have not necessarily missed a golden opportunity. In fact, he argues, younger children are still so occupied with straightening out the world that they have plenty enough to discover. By five or six, on the other hand, kids know more, such as the objects to which words are referring, yet they still retain a "voracious capacity to learn."
Moreover, the factors that contribute to language acquisition are not entirely biological. Other issues, what he calls "social circumstances and motivation," are crucial. These include the amount of support an individual receives while learning a language, the degree of exposure to the language (immersion, for example, accelerates language learning at any age), and whether or not that exposure was in an isolated and limited community. Of course, individual cases also vary due to what Saffran calls simply "talent."
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發表於 05-7-28 19:34
