Brain Development and Language Acquisition
In the last decade, brain researchers have uncovered much information about the brain’s energy, structure, and functions by means of Ultrasound, MRI, CAT, PET and EEG. They call these studies of the brain Neuroscience research, and they have determined that the brain is not only responsible for thinking, but for a person’s actions and emotions as well. In spite of the fact that there are different areas of the brain responsible for different functions, our brain functions as an integrated whole. 
The recognition of patterns and relationships in our current knowledge and the ability to make connections between these understandings and the new information we gain seems to be the key to human intelligence.
As our brain collects information from our environment by means of our five senses it enters our short-term memory unconsciously. Our brain, which cannot attend to the plethora of information that bombards it at one time; about 40,000 stimuli per second, begins to screen it and only registers the relevant information that relates to the person’s prior experiences.
From this stage it is passed on to the working memory where we are able to focus and attend to it for the first time and begin to understand what it means. If we are able to connect the new information with our current knowledge because it has meaning and sense; it is then stored in our long-term memory. Our brain has an amazing, almost unlimited capacity to capture and retain information and undergoes both chemical and physical changes as it gains new information.
Brain Development Process:
Brain development proceeds in a wave-like manner. A particular part of the brain will be under construction at a given time. We continue to learn throughout our lifetime, but there are certain periods in a child’s brain development when the brain is highly absorbent, able to acquire new information with more facility than at other times. This seems to be true especially from birth to 3 years of age, when the child’s brain is 2.5 times more active than an adult’s brain, and proceeds through early childhood into adolescence.
A child can learn the grammar and meaning of his home language with little effort in these early years. Learning a second language comes most easily from 5-10 years of age, while learning a second language as an adult is possible but slower and more difficult. Different positions are held by various neuroscience researchers in regard to second language instruction. Some hold to learning the first language well before the second language is introduced, others prefer that the child be exposed to both languages simultaneously, while others hold to only introducing 50 or so words in the second language until the child is 5 years of age.
In my experience, children from dual language homes such as myself, usually do not speak as early as those in monolingual families, probably because they are having to process two languages and so they remain in the receptive stage longer before they begin to produce complete sentences in either language. They will, in their own time, move into the productive stage in each language and will eventually speak both languages well as long as they continue to be spoken at home. The key is for the parents, grandparents, or the caretaker to speak his/her most proficient language to the child in order to be the best model of that language.
It is to be expected that the learner will do some “code-switching” or speaking a sentence in one language with a word or two of the other language thrown in to replace a word they haven’t learned or have forgotten momentarily. In our state where there are many immigrants who began learning English as teens or adults, it is not uncommon to hear much code-switching when conversing with them. Presumably as they further develop their second language that will stop.
Of course there will be improvement in most skills throughout the child’s and even the adult’s life, but allowing children the opportunity to learn and develop a new language during the period when their brains are most ready and able to absorb the new information or skill is always best. Another benefit to early teaching of a second language is that most often children are not as self-conscious as adults if they make mistakes, and before long they are confidently conversing with family or friends in their new language. We have an amazing brain, do we not?
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