Please watch this video to find out just how fantastic children and babies are at language learning! Patricia Kuhl is co-director of the Institute for Brain and Learning Sciences at the University of Washington. She's internationally recognized for her research on early language and brain development, and studies that show how young children learn. Kuhl’s work has played a major role in demonstrating how early exposure to language alters the brain. It has implications for critical periods in development, for bilingual education and reading readiness, for developmental disabilities involving language, and for research on computer understanding of speech.
Babies and young children are like sponges for language learning. They are programmed to pick up any language they hear. This makes a great deal of sense. Babies all over the world are ‘citizens of the world.’ They can discriminate all the sounds of all languages, no matter what country they're born into. They already start to "tune in" to the language they hear more frequently from about 9 months of age. However, their learning power remains high until about the age of seven - take a look at the graph on the left. Michael Gove really needs to consider his plans to make MFL compulsory AFTER age seven! Please watch this video to find out just how fantastic children and babies are at language learning! Patricia Kuhl is co-director of the Institute for Brain and Learning Sciences at the University of Washington. She's internationally recognized for her research on early language and brain development, and studies that show how young children learn. Kuhl’s work has played a major role in demonstrating how early exposure to language alters the brain. It has implications for critical periods in development, for bilingual education and reading readiness, for developmental disabilities involving language, and for research on computer understanding of speech.
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We are very proud to announce the launch of our newest language - Mandarin! Many believe that Mandarin is the language of the future, including Michael Gove who recently announced that modern languages are to be made compulsory in English primary schools in 2014. He is partic
Since Chinese is the communicative language of approximately 15 per cent of the world's population, proficient speakers of Mandarin should be able to find jobs in such competitive fields as business management, sales marketing, government, information technology, international relations, tourism, education, translation, hospitality and public relations. Of all foreign languages offered in colleges and universities, demand for Chinese shows the highest proportional increase in enrolment. Here is a little video of our welcome song to get you in the mood for our newest addition. We've added subtitles in English, Simple Chinese and PinYin to help. If you'd like to book onto a Mandarin course (or indeed French or Spanish!), please get in touch. Enjoy the video! Keeping the kids entertained over the summer holidays can be difficult. Many parents also like to make sure they do some educational activities too. Many more worry about the cost of such activities. Well, here at Lingotot we've devised a FREE week-long online craft club for kids. Each and every day of week beginning 13th August we will be posting a new French video online which demos a simple craft activity 100% in French for the children to watch, understand and copy - imagine Blue Peter in French! We will also sneak in some songs ;) We really hope you enjoy doing the simple crafts together and please please send us your photographs of your finished masterpieces, or even short videos of you completing the lovely little tasks. You can email them to us or upload them to our Facebook page. To access the videos, simply click here or find the link on our homepage. Please share with all of your friends! Happy crafting! PS Don't forget to sign up for your new term of classes now to secure your place Our very own Angela Sterling, Lingotot founder, was in the press this week talking about Michael Gove's plans to make languages compulsory in English primary schools. Speaking to The Journal this week she did of course welcome the plans, but here at Lingotot we think that languages should be made compulsory at an earlier age than the proposed 7 years old.....our little children pick up the language effortlessly and much like they learn their own mother tongue.
Angela also worries about the lack of funding for the scheme, "Primary school teachers do a fantastic job. However, the majority of them are not language specialists and cannot speak the language fluently. “Schools will need extra funding to train their own teachers or bring in specialist providers, like Lingotot, to fill the skills gap." What a busy week here at Lingotot! Our wonderful and clever Lingotots have been creating some lovely crafts after following our instructions 100% in French at full speed! Quite an achievement! Here are some examples of their work: rainbows and little fish...
We are very excited here at Lingotot with the news that languages are about to be made compulsory in primary schools.
According to the Telegraph, "Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, will say that subjects such as French, German, Spanish, Mandarin, Latin or Greek will be made a compulsory part of the primary school timetable for the first time. Ministers hope the move will make pupils better-equipped to compete in a global economy while reversing the “damaging collapse” in GCSE language take-up. Currently about one in ten state primary schools offers no language lessons at all and a further 20 per cent only offer it to some year groups, according to the most recent official figures. The move to make languages a requirement from age seven will form part of a new primary National Curriculum, taking effect in 2014." To read more from this article, please click here. You can also read more about it on the BBC website, "New curriculum 'to make languages compulsory from seven' " A warm welcome to Lingotot HQ for LingoTed, our cute little language friend and mascot! LingoTed will be going on lots of adventures over the coming weeks and we'll keep you posted on his comings and goings....he may even go for a sleepover with one of our Lingotots. Please get in touch if you'd like to volunteer to look after LingoTed for a few days and report back on his activities with photographs :D For some people choosing a language is easy and obvious. Perhaps you are a native or fluent speaker of a language or you have relatives who are. However, if you are like many families here in the UK, perhaps your experience is limited to some basic school-level French and asking for two beers on holiday in Spanish! That makes your decision a little tricky. You may want to consider the following as a good starting point on language choice: * Do you have a strong preference for or a love of a particular language? * Have you studied any languages or do you know them well? * Do you feel comfortable using this language with your child(ren)? * Are there any other family members with language skills? * How often would you or other members of your family be able to use the language with your little one(s)? * Are there any languages spoken in your local area which you could easily access? * What kind of languages classes or playgroups are available locally? * Is there a Lingotot class near you? If not you could contact us about starting one! * Do any local nurseries or childminders offer a second language? * Do you live close to a university or similar institution where you could easily access foreign-speaking babysitters? Don’t forget that when you have chosen your language that dedication is they key - so stick with it! When is the best time to start learning another language?
I get asked this question a lot. Because I run foreign language sessions for babies, toddlers and young children, some parents approach me concerned that they’ve “left it too late” to start. The great news is that it’s never too early or two late to start learning another language! There are distinct advantages to starting to learn at different ages. Adult learners are very motivated. Perhaps you regret not learning a language when we were younger, perhaps you need to use it for work, but whatever the reason you can bet you don’t have a lot of spare time so your dedication will be second-to-none! There’s no slacking off for adults, they hammer the books hard! At the start of secondary school, learners go through what I like to call a brain growth spurt! This is an ideal time to learn lots of new things, including a language. Perhaps this is one of the reasons why languages were traditionally introduced at aged eleven in the UK. At this age, children already know how to learn which gives them an amazing head start over younger children. Primary school children have lots of enthusiasm for language learning. They love to show off what they have learned and they are curious about other cultures. As they are beginning to read and write, they have a range of sources they can access for help in their language learning. They can begin to read in the foreign language and try some writing too. All of these skills make for a great start and they often make better progress than babies and toddlers in the beginning. Having said all of that, I personally believe the best time to start introducing a second language is when they are babies or toddlers. Very young children will pick up the language in the same way as they learned their mother tongue, naturally and easily. Think of it this way: When a baby is born, it has no idea where in the world it is going to arrive. It’s brain is lovely and flexible, ready to soak up any new language is hears. At about the age of 8-10 months, the baby then starts to “tune in” to the language(s) it hears around him/her. This means that foreign language sounds which do not exist in the mother tongue, start to be “tuned out” ever so gradually. You can read more about this here and here. Many experts do agree that there seems to be an ‘optimal’ time period for learning a second language: from birth to three years. In other words, right when a child is learning the first language. The time when his/her mind is still open and flexible. Learning a second language boosts toddlers’ brain function. It has even been suggested that babies born to bilingual mothers who regularly spoke both languages during pregnancy exhibit different language preferences than infants born to mothers speaking only one language. I often hear people say that children are like “sponges” who “soak up” language effortlessly. If this is the case, then why not take advantage of this incredible skill to introduce new languages to them? Just imagine, you could save them from hours and hours conjugating verbs in a classroom, sweating over pages of vocabulary learning and an accent that’s never quite right. Instead you could nurture not only their language skills, but their love of that language too! |
LingototLingotot foreign language sessions introduce babies, toddlers and young children to a new language through stories, songs, games and play. Archives
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