Why should preschoolers learn a foreign language?

With so pressure to give our kids the best start possible in life to go on and succeed later in a highly competitive society, parents need to know what will work best for their child. For children ages 3-6, a foreign language environment is the best long-term gift a parent can give.

There is a brief window of opportunity before the age of 6, where the mind of a young child has a unique ability to acquire language (and the french language too!). The brain's connections are primed for language acquisition, including the sounds and meanings of words, through the age of 6. This ability exists across multiple language systems, so that any child can readily acquire 2 or more languages given the right environment and stimulus. However, as their brains start maturing, they lose this flexible ability to pick up new languages; by the time they reach puberty, children already have their language tied into reasoning, meaning and structure, and any new language study really involves translation into languages already known by that child, rather than innate fluency independent of other languages.

Although other areas of learning are also important, they don't have the same drastic difference between childhood and adulthood in the ability to easily grasp and acquire mastery such as language. Especially in areas requiring high levels of abstract reasoning (math, science, and extrapolation), early childhood is not the best time to push children along these paths of learning; they can better learn them at an older age. Language - and especially foreign language, like the french language! is best started before the age of 6.

Beyond the idea that early childhood is the natural and best time for exposure to new language, there are some interesting findings on the positive effects of bilingual learning for preschoolers:

• Learning a second language enhances native-language skills. Kids in immersion language programs score higher in creativity and problem-solving than their monolingual peers.
• Learning a foreign language and culture gives a child a whole new world to explore with friends from that world, and gives them a better understanding of their own language and culture.
• At a later date, students with exposure to other languages score higher statistically than monolingual students on the SAT verbal section (in English), and in mathematics.

On a more practical note, acquiring a foreign language early gives a child a head start in meeting the foreign language graduation requirement for Michigan schools, and for their later college entrance requirements. This allows students to use time in high school that would otherwise be wasted in basic language courses in exploring new subject areas, or furthering their existing foreign language skills at more advanced levels.

Finally, knowing a foreign language (like the french language) fluently is a big advantage in employment with companies who need that language skill-set. With increasing globalization of markets, this is becoming more and more essential.