As a person who doesn’t know the native tongue you are completely excluded from the culture. The locals shun you and you are relegated to sightseeing and taking cheesy photos. Knowing even a few phrases of the language will make a huge difference. You will meet many more people and find it much easier to get around. People are much more receptive if you make an effort to speak their language. This can turn a frustrating experience into the trip of a lifetime.1

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1. Improve your English – I know this might not make sense at first but hear me out. As a person who speaks only one language you have no basis for comparison; all you know is English. In different languages the same idea is often expressed in different ways. Knowing another language gives you a great measuring stick. It will help you better understand tenses, prepositions, and all the other parts of speech we normally take for granted. You will find yourself speaking and writing more precise creative sentences. There is a reason most great writers and poets are students of many languages.1

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How long it takes to learn a language depends on a lot of factors, most of which depend on you. Contrary to popular belief it generally doesn’t depend that much on what language you’re learning – the differences in difficulty between them aren’t as drastic as most people want to believe (we’ll get into some specific numbers below). It’s a combination of what kind of materials you study with, how often you study, what kinds of goals you set for yourself and what kind of learner you are.

But, it also depends on what you mean by learn a language. We’re not really talking about fluency (which of course depends on your definition of fluency) and certainly not a native accent, but more like proficiency in everyday situations, and with an accent. It takes a lifetime to really learn a language.

Ok, enough hemming and hawing – how long does it take to learn a language?

There is a rule of thumb that you need to spend about 400 hours of study to become proficient in a language that is relatively similar to English, or longer than that for one that is generally considered more difficult. (The list of languages on the easier side includes Spanish, French, Italian, Dutch, Swedish, Indonesian and Swahili. The languages on the harder side require two to three times that 400 hours because you need to learn new alphabets and writing systems, lots of different sounds, tones, more complex grammar etc. and includes languages like Russian, Arabic, Japanese and Mandarin. If you are smart with which aspects of the language you are learning and how you study them, that extra time required is not that drastic.)

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Extracted from the web http://www.language-learning-advisor.com/how-long-will-it-take-to-learn-a-language.html

It looks like bilingual brains are more resistant to the effects of cognitive decline. Previous studies by the same researchers had established that bilingual people were better at paying attention and ignoring distractions. Ellen Bialystok, the lead researcher on these studies, believes that this is because bilingual people always have to decide which language to use and suppress the other. This would provide practice in focusing attention, sorting through conflicting information and ignoring distraction.

Bilingualism may delay dementia in the same way that mental activity is thought to, that is by contributing to building cognitive brain reserve.

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Bialystok, E., Craik, F.I.M., & Freedman, M. (2007). Bilingualism as a protection against the onset of symptoms of dementia. Neuropsychologia, 45, 459-464.

“Don’t you talk to your children in your native language?”

It was more an accusation than a question and I felt like responding harshly but checked myself because I realized I’d sound defensive and there really was no need for that.

Sure, a lot of people manage to bring up their children bilingual, even if they were born in this country as both mine were. My husband and I tried with my son, now age 12, and then simply gave up. When he was very young, my son would respond in Hindi but as soon as school began, he would not bother. He only wanted to speak in English because he was aware he had an accent that made his Hindi sound different than ours. Now, he learns French at school.

For our three-year-old daughter, it’s tougher still because she began going to daycare at four months. We end up spending a lot less time with her than we did with my son on a daily basis because of changes in our schedules. She understands snippets of Hindi but not nearly as much as my son does.

We could have enrolled them in language lessons but it just didn’t seem like top priority for us. My son is busy with squash and trumpet lessons and my daughter has swimming lessons. I don’t want to add a language class to their already-busy schedules.

Aside from the time issue, there’s the fact that both my husband and I grew up speaking both English and Hindi at home and we mainly speak in English with each other and with our parents.

There is the argument that they should know about their heritage but learning Hindi is not necessary for that. We celebrate festivals and go to the temple when we can so they have a fair connection with our culture and religion. We also eat a lot of Indian food so their palate can take some spice.

Readers, are any of you raising your children to be bilingual? How are you doing it? Do you speak another language at home? Or send them to immersion school or language classes? If you grew up with a different language, did you choose not to raise your children bilingual? Share your experiences.

Are you kids losing your native language?  We can help.  Check out our website @ crossingbordersgroup.com or call Ric today @ 281-465-0899.

Extracted from the web @ http://blogs.wsj.com/juggle/2012/01/06/why-my-kids-arent-bilingual/?mod=WSJBlog

It happens during that magical stage when a baby’s babbling gradually changes from gibberish into syllables and eventually into that first “mama” or “dada.”

Florida scientists discovered that starting around age 6 months, babies begin shifting from the intent eye gaze of early infancy to studying mouths when people talk to them.

“The baby in order to imitate you has to figure out how to shape their lips to make that particular sound they’re hearing,” explains developmental psychologist David Lewkowicz of Florida Atlantic University, who led the study being published Monday. “It’s an incredibly complex process.”

Apparently it doesn’t take them too long to absorb the movements that match basic sounds. By their first birthdays, babies start shifting back to look you in the eye again — unless they hear the unfamiliar sounds of a foreign language. Then, they stick with lip-reading a bit longer.

“It’s a pretty intriguing finding,” says University of Iowa psychology professor Bob McMurray, who also studies speech development. The babies “know what they need to know about, and they’re able to deploy their attention to what’s important at that point in development.”

The new research appears in this week’s issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. It offers more evidence that quality face-time with your tot is very important for speech development — more than, say, turning on the latest baby DVD.

It also begs the question of whether babies who turn out to have developmental disorders, including autism, learn to speak the same way, or if they show differences that just might provide an early warning sign.

Unraveling how babies learn to speak isn’t merely a curiosity. Neuroscientists want to know how to encourage that process, especially if it doesn’t seem to be happening on time. Plus, it helps them understand how the brain wires itself early in life for learning all kinds of things.

Those coos of early infancy start changing around age 6 months, growing into the syllables of the baby’s native language until the first word emerges, usually just before age 1.

A lot of research has centered on the audio side. That sing-song speech that parents intuitively use? Scientists know the pitch attracts babies’ attention, and the rhythm exaggerates key sounds. Other studies have shown that babies who are best at distinguishing between vowel sounds like “ah” and “ee” shortly before their first birthday wind up with better vocabularies and pre-reading skills by kindergarten.

But scientists have long known that babies also look to speakers’ faces for important social cues about what they’re hearing. Just like adults, they’re drawn to the eyes, which convey important nonverbal messages like the emotion connected to words and where to direct attention.

Lewkowicz went a step further, wondering whether babies look to the lips for cues as well, sort of like how adults lip-read to decipher what someone’s saying at a noisy party.

So he and doctoral student Amy Hansen-Tift tested nearly 180 babies, groups of them at ages 4, 6, 8, 10 and 12 months.

How? They showed videos of a woman speaking in English or Spanish to babies of English speakers. A gadget mounted on a soft headband tracked where each baby was focusing his or her gaze and for how long.

They found a dramatic shift in attention: When the speaker used English, the 4-month-olds gazed mostly into her eyes. The 6-month-olds spent equal amounts of time looking at the eyes and the mouth. The 8- and 10-month-olds studied mostly the mouth.

At 12 months, attention started shifting back toward the speaker’s eyes.

It makes sense that at 6 months, babies begin observing lip movement, Lewkowicz says, because that’s about the time babies’ brains gain the ability to control their attention rather than automatically look toward noise.

But what happened when these babies accustomed to English heard Spanish? The 12-month-olds studied the mouth longer, just like younger babies. They needed the extra information to decipher the unfamiliar sounds.

That fits with research into bilingualism that shows babies’ brains fine-tune themselves to start distinguishing the sounds of their native language over other languages in the first year of life. That’s one reason it’s easier for babies to become bilingual than older children or adults.

But the continued lip-reading shows the 1-year-olds clearly still “are primed for learning,” McMurray says.

Babies are so hard to study that this is “a fairly heroic data set,” says Duke University cognitive neuroscientist Greg Appelbaum, who found the research so compelling that he wants to know more.

Are the babies who start to shift their gaze back to the eyes a bit earlier better learners, or impatient to their own detriment? What happens with a foreign language after 12 months?

Lewkowicz is continuing his studies of typically developing babies. He theorizes that there may be different patterns in children at risk of autism, something autism experts caution would be hard to prove.

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Extracted from the web @ http://news.yahoo.com/study-babies-try-lip-reading-learning-talk-200046659.html

“We are learning our color words.  Learning  how to spell them and things that are different colors and we are also learning how to say them in Espanol or Spanish,” Curtis said.  Curtis says the interactive exercises have made English as a second language a favorite class for her students.  At the beginning of the school year, she had one student who only spoke Spanish, but is now able to communicate.

She believes it’s important for students to get a firm foundation for foreign languages at a young age.  “My English speaking students have really enjoyed learning a different language, they actually listen to me a lot better when I speak in Spanish sometimes because they’re trying to figure out what I’m saying,” she said.

Kindergartners say they look forward to the ESL classes, and each student and even the teacher has a favorite song. “I would have to say yellow.” “Why?” “I like the motions, it reminds me of something tropical,” said Curtis.

“I would say white.” “Why is that?” “Because it has a polar bear in it,” said Kindergarten Student Hugh Porter.

“My favorite song is pink. I like the part, that says, pinky was a stinky pig, I like that part.” said Kindergartener Angel Ramirez.  Angel says one of her parents speaks Spanish at home, and the classes are helping her communicate.  “I need to learn some more so I can get better and better,” she said.

With a unique and fun curriculum, Angel and her classmates in this Carver Kindergarten class are not only learning English and Spanish, they are also making the grade.

Call us today to start your language journey at 281-465-0899.

Extracted from the web @ http://www.wcbi.com/article.php?subaction=showfull&id=1325022685&archive=&start_from=&ucat=2,41&

1. Mandarin Chinese NATIVE: 873 million
2nd: 178 million
TOTAL: 1.051 billion
OFFICIAL: People’s Republic of China, Republic of China, Singapore

2. Hindi NATIVE: 370 million
2nd:120 million
TOTAL: 490 million
OFFICIAL: India, Fiji

3. Spanish NATIVE: 350 million
2nd: 70 million
TOTAL: 420 million
OFFICIAL: Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Equatorial Guinea, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Spain, United States (New Mexico, Puerto Rico, Uruguay, Venezuela

4. English NATIVE: 340 million
TOTAL: 510 million
OFFICIAL: Antigua and Barbuda, Australia, The Bahamas, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belize, Botswana, Brunei, Cameroon, Canada, Dominica, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Fiji, The Gambia, Ghana, Grenada, Guyana, Hong Kong (People’s Republic of China), India, Ireland, Jamaica, Kenya, Kiribati, Lesotho, Liberia, Malawi, Maldives, Malta, Marshall Islands, Maritius, Micronesia, Namibia, Nauru, New Zealand, Nigeria, Pakistan, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Rwanda, Saint Kitts and Nevs, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Samoa, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Singapore, Solomon Islands, Somolia, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Swaziland, Tanzania, Tonga, Trinidad and Tobago, Tuvalu, Uganda, United Kingdom, United States, Vanuatu, Zambia, Zimbabwe.

5. Arabic NATIVE: 206 million
2nd: 24 million
TOTAL: 230 million
OFFICIAL: Modern Standard Arabic: Algeria, Bahrain, Chad, Comoros, Djibouti, Egypt, Eritrea, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Niger, Oman, Palestinian Territories, Quatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, Western Sahara, Yemen. | Hasaniya Arabic: Mauritania, Senegal
NATIONAL: Mali

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Dr Claridge’s research investigated the perceptions of learners, teachers and publishers involved in second language learner reading, and found that learners often try to read at an inappropriately difficult level.

“Learners, teachers and publishers tend to believe that the harder the text, the greater the learning benefits will be. However, the evidence from this study suggests that devoting time to reading easy texts for pleasure, alongside the traditional approach of examining difficult texts, would benefit learners in developing fluency.”

Dr Claridge surveyed a group of second language learner students in English at International Pacific College, Palmerston North, over two years, and also canvassed the opinions of teachers and editors of four of the major publishers of second language learner books.

She says previous studies have focused on measuring the amount that English proficiency has improved through extensive reading, but few have looked at whether the learners actually enjoy reading.

“Enjoyment or lack of it obviously has implications for the amount learners read, which appears to be as little as they possibly can, in many cases.”

Dr Claridge says her research shows learners want an emotional experience from reading, but teachers’ expectations and the requirement for accountability in all aspects of ESOL teaching and learning, often impede this.

“The kind of experience they want is the ‘lost in the book’ feeling that native speaker readers get when they can’t put a book down. This kind of reading is effortless.”

However, she says learners often don’t get this experience because they are nearly always reading at a level which is too high to allow them to become submerged.

“So they are doomed to be disappointed as pleasure readers, because each time they start to get involved in a story, they come up against a word that they don’t know, and have to stop and look it up in the dictionary.”
She says the ‘no pain, no gain’ view of teachers, students and their parents, and an emphasis on grades is to blame.

“Teachers encourage learners to read above their level, apparently not understanding that true pleasure reading both requires and develops a vital reading skill—fluency.”

She says the situation can be improved by persuading students and teachers that learners should read below, rather than above, their level.

“It’s also important to encourage the publishers to produce far more riveting books at really low levels, to get learners hooked early on in their progression in English, and also to explore the use of electronic possibilities in reading these days, which might be more attractive to the younger generation than paper based books’

Gillian Claridge will graduate with a PhD in Applied Linguistics at Victoria University of Wellington on Monday 12 December, and is currently the dean of the degree programme in the Faculty of International Studies at International Pacific College in Palmerston North.

More about the researcher
Gillian says she is a “reading addict” in three languages (English, French and Russian). As well as advising students to read as much as they possibly can, she also organises and teaches TESOL training programmes, which include extensive reading.

She has come to doctoral studies rather later in life than is usual; she started her career as a Russian transcriber and analyst in the British civil service, and then helped her husband run a fish farm, before taking up ESOL teaching.

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Extracted from the web @ http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/ED1112/S00042/pleasure-reading-key-to-second-language-learning.htm

In a recent experiment, Christiane Schreiweis of the Max Planck Institute and colleagues looked at the human version of the gene in mice. She challenged mice — some with and without the human version of FOXP2 — to complete a maze by following clues, as detailed in one Nature news article.

After eight days, the mice with the human version of the gene performed better at the maze and appeared to learn the clues faster. The findings suggest the human version of the gene may help form connections in the brain that allow for advanced motor movements and learning. This could potentially explain the gene’s role in the development of language roughly half a million years ago.

Mutations of FOXP2 were first found by a researcher at the same institute in a group of related people,  called the KE Family, who showed speech impairment when the gene was not working properly.

But FOXP2 isn’t unique to humans, with the majority of animals possessing versions of the gene as well.

Another study in songbirds found that when researchers limited the gene from being expressed, the birds had trouble forming vocalizations typical to their species.

Science writer Ed Yong points out that FOXP2′s place in human evolution may have more to do with building basic neural connections in the brain rather than regulating language alone.

Overall, it seems that FOXP2 acts as one piece to the larger puzzle of language development. In fact, the gene is thought to control other genes that shape an organism’s ability to learn certain motor skills.