Bilingual Babies

Bilingual Babies

In America roughly 14% of our population is fluent in a language other than English. On the other hand, more than 90% of European children are able to fluently speak a second language. Children between the ages of six and nine are more open to learning a second language for the simple fact that their brains are more sponge-like. “A child is born with the ability to learn any language in the world. The older the child gets, certain windows close in terms of language acquisition, but so long as the child learns the language before puberty, the child should be able to speak with a native accent,” says Caryn Antonini, the creator of Early Lingo. As a result of these findings, a required foreign language course in West Virginia elementary schools will be highly beneficial to students by making them more intelligent, marketable and overall healthier in the future.

The article “The Power of Language” by Carol Seefeldt states that children’s communication skills develop while they’re still in the infancy stages of life. As children develop, they “acquire increasingly sophisticated communication through new experiences and frequent interactions with parents, caregivers, teachers and peers”. Between the years of three and four, toddlers can speak in nearly complete sentences. By the age of five, children have expanded their vocabulary anywhere from five to eight thousand words. They’re also aware that some words have two or more meanings. Communication is the key in helping your child learn a new language. With the high amount of language learning devices that we have available to us, there is virtually no excuse for not being fluent in a second language.

One example of an early learner is Azure Warrenfeltz. Azure is fluent in Japanese and Spanish. She is also capable of understanding small bits of French, German, Arabic, and Italian. At only four years old, she is also learning Mandarin Chinese. Azure’s parents insisted on her education including...