From the early age of a child majority part of parents start to think about the future of their children, including the learning English as a second language.

The expression “language learning” includes two clearly distinct, though rarely understood, concepts. One involves receiving information about the language, transforming it into the knowledge through intellectual effort and storing it through memorization. The other involves developing the skill of interacting with foreigners to understand and speak the language. The first concept is called “language learning”, while the other is referred to as “language acquisition”. (SCHÜTZ, b)
The clear understanding of the differences between acquisition and learning makes it possible for the parents to have the better idea about the “language learning”.

Researchers found out that there are critical periods, or windows of opportunity, in human’s brain for learning language.
One of the first windows of opportunity for language comes early in life. We know that infants are able to distinguish the sound of all languages, but not everyone knows that by six months of age they are no longer able to recognize sounds that are not heard in their native tongue. As infants hear the patterns of sound in their own language, a different cluster of neurons in the auditory cortex of the brain responds to each sound. By 6 months of age, infants will have difficulty picking out sounds they have not heard repeated often. (Shiver, 2003)

Windows of opportunity for language development occur throughout life. The window for syntax or grammar is open during the preschool years and may close as early as 5 or 6 years of age, while the window for adding new words never closes completely. (SHIVER, 2003)

While critical periods are prime times for the development of specific neural synapses, skills can still be learned after a window of opportunity has closed, but with greater time and effort.

Hearing two languages spoken at home is a real advantage to the child. If a child hears two languages from birth, he/she will maintain the ability to hear the sounds of both and be able to speak each language with the accent of a native speaker.
If a child enters a preschool and is first exposed to a second language after the age of 3, he/she will still be able to acquire the second language easily because he/she knows the rues of communication. In 3 to 7 months the child will begin to understand the second language. After about 2 years he/she will be able to carry on a fluent conversation. (SHIVER, 2003)
But after the age of 10 or 12 a child’s brain can no longer encode new basic language units in the same way. If he/she tries to learn a second language as a teenager or adult, he/she must do it with the language programming already in his/her brains. He/she will have to use a mental translation process and will speak the second language with the accents of the native tongue.

(SCHÜTZ, a)

There is one more additional benefit of learning language in early stages of life. The latest studies reveal that bilingual children learn to read sooner, they receive higher math and verbal scores.
As we can see, the younger person is the easier and with less effort they learn a second language. If it is not possible to expose the child to the second language from the birth, so why not to put the child to a bilingual school, to have an English speaking babysitter or to choose school where English is tough from the early stage?

Aurelija Duleviciute Voulgarelis