Why English
Why English?
Learning a language gives us access and opportunity, stimulates neurological connections and makes the learner more confident. Learning a popular and widely spoken language such as English, opens up a range of avenues.
Knowledge of the English language is becoming increasingly vital in a globalised world.
It is the second most widely spoken language and It is also the language of the internet. English language infiltrates the financial world and is the functional language for business, the tourism sector, science and medicine. It is featured as an international language.
Additionally English helps us further our educational opportunities as we gain access to a range of options for further education.
Why English for children?
Are children more receptive to learning language than adults? Do children learn faster? How do they master their mother tongue with no formal educational instruction? What are the techniques we apply to helping children learn their mother tongue?
Children learn language at a remarkable skill and rate. A child will usually learn relative fluency of their mother tongue at the age of 2 and increased fluency over the time of their childhood. How children learn at such a remarkable rate, mirroring the accent of their carers, using words in the right context, applying colloquialisms has fascinated neuroscientists for decades.
So, let’s take a look at how children learn languages, and the reasons they are so good at language learning.
How do children acquire language?
Reason 1: children immersed or exposed to language absorb magically
Children seem to magically absorb language that they are exposed to and this is especially true of learning one’s mother-tongue. This is achieved through immersion, leading to a feeling of not even deciding to learn.
You could say that children have an advantage from the start, because they start learning a language without even deciding to. It is this unconscious, subconscious learning which is valued.
Often adults see children as some kind of magic sponges.
Additionally they are exposed to multiple learning opportunities such as song, visual stimulations and auditory support. Using songs and rhymes, children discover new vocabulary, and pick it up naturally because they’re enjoying themselves. Learning is fun.
Reason 2: subliminal learning- Children Don’t Realise They’re Learning
- Children embrace the challenge of learning in a different way to adults. In fact, they don’t see it as a challenge at all. They take it in their stride – because they often don’t notice it’s happening! This is termed subliminal learning.
- So since children don’t realise they are learning, what they are doing is subliminally acquiring language. The key to success with language learning is the difference between language learning and acquisition. This is where subliminal learning which is a subconscious way of learning that children highly skilled at. They subconsciously learn a variety of things without the conscious rigours of classroom teaching.
- Acquisition is something that children are good at – they’ve only recently acquired their first language after all (and they did fine with that), acquisition has worked for them without trying to learn rules and grammar and they will hone in on practicing those same mother-tongue language learning skills again. Acquisition takes away the dreaded learning grammar and rules. Acquisition however, is how you gradually know the language better and better, through processes like speaking, listening, hearing the context, building vocabulary.
- This is subconscious, and comes as a result of interaction in a variety of different ways. choose to do things that mean you have fun learning, and this will mean you pick up things ‘naturally’ like a child can!
Reason 3: Children Have an Ear for Phonemes — the Sounds of a Language
- There are studies that prove children are especially skilled at learning phonemes, the distinct sounds that form a language, compared to adults. Learning a foreign language from a young age can mean that it takes less effort to end up sounding like a native.
- Sometimes it seems impossible to understand what someone is saying, even if you know most of the words you’re hearing when they’re written on a page. A lot of the time the language is faster than you’re used to, and all the words seem to come out as one – how can we possibly work out the words we’ve just heard, let alone understand them?
- The way to be great at differentiating and imitating the sounds in a language is to expose yourself to the target language as much as possible. It helps if you have an awareness about phenomes and phonics, as they are the foundation to language decoding and so leads to language acquisition with deep understanding.
- Even if children do have a head start in picking up phonemes, as an adult you can reach a standard of speaking at least as good as through as much language exposure as possible, in whatever fun way you decide to do.
- Adults are also more likely to be able to learn particular structures in a language quickly. Children too are very responsive to structure and at establishing patterns in a language, enabling us to learn much more effectively.
Reason 4: Children Aren’t Afraid to Make Mistakes
- Of course, conveniently, adults tend to be over-users of their inner monitor! We worry about sounding stupid, and this can stop us from getting ourselves out there and practising. Children, however, don’t seem fazed at all. They learn from their mistakes.
- Language learning is different to learning other skills – it requires a lot of confidence in order to develop
Reason 5: Children Ignore the Idea of Becoming Fluent
- A child doesn’t see fluency as a far-away goal – they don’t even see it as a goal. Focusing too much on the end result can be discouraging; and as adults who learn more consciously, we are more aware of the prospect of fluency, and often as a result find the idea of reaching that goal rather intimidating.
- Learning exactly like a child will never be the answer. But we can take lessons from them in order to be better learners ourselves. If we can’t help finding language learning daunting, then we need to find ways to be motivated and continue to work to reach our goal.
