Fantastic reasons why children should be introduced to languages

The more languages you know, the more you are a person (Bulgarian proverb)

When we’re raising children with different cultures it’s very natural to think about why you want your child to learn your language, and how important you believe it is for them to understand where you’re from. You can see endless positive reasons where your child will benefit. They will be able to converse with grandparents, travel, work abroad, improve their own mental development. All of these reasons are real and justified.

It’s very easy when trying to impart language knowledge to focus on just words. However, what makes a language interesting to learn for you is your connection to it and your child needs to feel that too.

Like us adults, children need a reason why they should learn. So sometimes taking a step back from actual language learning and building on knowledge of a culture can accelerate your child’s language ability later on.

Talk to your child about why you’d like them to learn your language. Often this point gets missed.
Explain to older children why it’s important for you that they learn and you feel you can communicate with them more fully in your own language.
You can teach them funny phrases, that are only heard in your language and explain their meaning.

If your child has been learning two languages from birth I believe this stage of acceptance and consideration of their identity happens around age five.
At this age they are starting to become aware of who they are and what other families look like. Whether these families all speak the community language or different ones.

In the modern era, where the internet has provided the gateway to the whole world, where the advancement in communication has reached higher peaks and where social media has invaded almost everyone’s lives, it has become imperative for every being to know at least one foreign language.

So, should children learn foreign languages? There are several positive and negative aspects of this question.

The first positive aspect is that when a child learns the vocabulary in a foreign language it expands the vocabulary in that child’s mother tongue through checking new words in a dictionary. The child can learn completely new words or better understand the ones he or she already knows.

The second positive aspect is that for the brain. Switching between two languages is like switching between two tasks and therefore language learning can improve the child’s multitasking abilities. Whereas learning foreign vocabulary can improve the child’s memory.

The third positive aspect is that the child will be exposed to other cultures. He or she will have the opportunity to learn about a new culture. Through language, a child can learn about the country’s traditions and history, find out how the language evolved and which other languages influenced it.

Now let us discuss some negative aspects. The first one is language interference or mixing languages. After learning a foreign language, the child might start mixing all the languages he or she knows and might use the words of one language while speaking another language.

The second negative impact is that the child develops a foreign accent which causes him or her to lose some of their national identity. Another negative impact is that learning a foreign language by a child requires additional effort on the child’s part which can cause the child to develop stress and tension.

The power to learn a foreign language at the early age is so great and urgent in the young child that it does not seem to matter in what way and how you try to do it. Nevertheless, the point is that they can learn as many not foreign but spoken languages as you can allow them to hear systematically and regularly.

Taking into account this very peculiar feature of the child of the early age, put forward the following tasks:
- to teach the correct pronunciation and speaking with the help of dialogue and games;
- to encourage pupils to feel free, motivated and autonomous.