"The earlier the foreign language is introduced the greater the likelihood of success" - mgr Oliwia Słowińska - Szych

The world seems to be shrinking very fast as international barriers break down and people can more easily contact with other cultures and languages through travel, communication and new technology.

English now has official status in sixty countries and an important position in twenty more countries.

Pressure to introduce early learning has often come from parents who strongly believe that having English as a tool will benefit their children greatly by giving them more opportunities to gain economic and educational advantages.

Until recently, however, English language learning in many countries began at secondary school. There is a growing trend in many countries for children to start their language learning at a much younger age (Brewster, 2002: 1).

In his short work “Second Language Learning” William Littlewood claims that “Debate about Second Language Learning (SLL) has been going on for many centuries now. In the first century the Roman rhetorician Quintilian and then around 400ad. St Augustine discussed the subject of optimal age for SLL. They favored an early start because by nature we retain best what is learned in our tenderest years.
And what we would now call ‘intrinsic motivation’, which is free curiosity, has a more positive effect on learning than necessity and fear.” As a teacher of young learners I strongly advocate the view of our great ancestors and always try to convince parents to take care about their children’s early learning a foreign language, even at the pre-school age.

Scientists proved that young children can learn languages effortlessly. George Bush, M.D. assistant professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, who specializes in brain mapping says: ‘A child’s brain, from infancy to age 7, is shaped by its experiences – what it sees, hears and touches. When it is exposed to the sounds of a second language, the brain of a young child will actually grow connections that make a new language easy to learn’. However, this process does not last eternally.

Dr Bush explains that around the age of 12, the brain begins to slow down in its ability to develop these connections. What is more, it starts to prune away any that are not being used. That is why, people who do not begin learning a second language early often have considerable difficulties, simply because their brain may not have developed the necessary connections (Kmieć, 2006: 36).
It is because ‘children are less distanced from the golden age when their acquired their mother tongue naturally’ (Brewster, Ellis and Girard 1992: 24). They can pick up a second language easily by hearing it, singing songs in it, using it in their play.

Research shows that foreign language classes not only help youngsters gain language skills, but also bring enormous effects in children’s thinking skills, improve their maths ability and give them the opportunity to appreciate another culture. The next plus to early learning English is building children’s self-esteem. Young children find it particularly fun to impress their parents by showing them their new competence. Children are proud because they know something their parents do not and it gives them their self-confidence.

Moreover, it is common knowledge that children who are in the first grade of their primary learning are much less inhibited than adults. They are not afraid to be imaginative and not ashamed to sing songs, mime and present role plays. They are curious about everything, keen to learn and very receptive.
They fancy ‘let’s pretend’ games, which help them rehearse for the real world. Children tend to learn new languages much more easily compared to adults, who have to make a lot of effort and put in long hours of hard work to make even small progress in their ability in a new language.

Young learners are often more enthusiastic and lively as learners. They want to please the teacher rather than their peer group. They will have a go at an activity when they do not quite understand why or how. Children acquire the foreign language subconsciously, mostly through play and what is more, they associate the English learning with some positive experience (Cameron, 2002: 2). I would even say that a positive attitude towards learning a foreign language is one of the most valuable things that primary schools teachers can transmit to children.

Besides, children learn much more than English in their English classes. Activities most suited for them are songs, rhymes, stories and tasks that involve drawing, coloring, cutting, folding and sticking. So, while acquiring knowledge the child make progress in the other areas as well. That is why, well-prepared games help to develop conceptual awareness, creativity, physical co-ordination and even social skills. Briefly speaking, English classes stimulate their all-round development. Not to forget about their ‘learning how to learn’ as during their primary classes they should acquire skills that will enable them to continue learning outside the school and in the older years of their schooling that will be much more formal and demanding.

Furthermore, research findings on the early age for foreign language learning show that the earlier they start learning English, the better grasp of both grammar and accent the child will have as an adult. That is because of the fact that children are taught listening and speaking as the most suitable skills to acquire for them. Particularly listening tasks are extremely important as they provide a rich source of language data from which the children begin to build up their own idea of how the foreign language works. That is a common view that young learners understand more than they can say and the same is with their first language – a six-month-old baby respond to information long before it can speak.

Second language learners also have a ‘silent period’ in which they listen to the language around them, internalize it, and formulate their own personal grammar, which they adapt and expand as they are exposed to more language (Philips, 2003: 15). Obviously this period should be respected and teachers must be aware of the fact that young learners should not be made to speak until they are ready.

Last but not least, the best method to teach children English is the one that involve the whole brain in the learning process. This can be done by using senses: visual (seeing), auditory (hearing), kinaesthetic (movement and feeling) as well as smell and taste. The more stimuli connected with the foreign language children receive, the greater their brains development will be, the better they will know the grammar of the English language as an adult and the better their accent will become.

The great linguist, Noam Chomsky, argued that all normal children have a build-in, instinctive power to absorb and then use language. Children do not need to be formally taught their first language – they will naturally, at their own pace, ‘pick up’ languages without conscious study and learning (Philips, 2003: 4).

One may conclude that teaching children a foreign language should start as early as possible because exposing a young child to a new world of words boosts their vocabulary, brainpower, self-esteem and guarantees better fluency and accuracy in language.