"Blabla Bula" March
The little guy began to communicate with his parents by crying as soon as he was born. I want to eat, I'm hungry, I'm afraid, I'm cold. ...
The little lovelies learned to play the game of losing their temper from the beginning. They will try to get familiar with their parents' language in order to show their needs in front of their parents. The language center of the human brain has also become a unique symbol of high IQ. 0 to 3 years old is a critical period for baby linguistics. If you can provide input in two languages naturally before the age of 3, your child's second language sensitivity will not be missed.
Can a baby develop his language center better in a multilingual environment? How should parents better cultivate their baby's language potential?
Multilingual environment = aphasia?
The boy's father is a Japanese translator and his mother works in a foreign-funded enterprise. In order to make Yue Yue a "language genius", my father comes home every night and speaks Japanese with Yue Yue, while my mother speaks English. Usually at home during the day, grandparents and grandparents take turns to take care of Yue Yue, so they speak Mandarin or Shanghainese with him. When the nanny took Yue Yue out to play, she spoke Zhejiang dialect with him. Unexpectedly, Yue Yue, who is in the language environment of "multi-party talks", can't speak at the age of 2.
In view of the above situation, there are doctors' comments in Shanghai that multilingual input leads to aphasia.
Is the multilingual environment the cause of the child's aphasia?
Let's look at the next example. This study may surprise you!
Happy little Noah
One-year-old Noah Servido lives in a multilingual world: his father speaks English, his mother speaks Korean, and his grandmother speaks English and Tagalog in the Philippines.
Patricia Kuhl, a professor in the Department of Language and Auditory Sciences at the University of Washington, USA, has studied children like Noah and found that a multilingual environment has many benefits for the growth of babies.
Professor Kuhl has long devoted himself to studying the amazing process of babies learning * * language. At present, one of her important projects in the laboratory is to study babies like Noah who are learning several languages at the same time.
With the active cooperation of Noah's mother, the researchers recorded Noah's brain activity. The researchers put a hat with electrodes on Noah, which is painless and can record the electrical signal activity in the brain when the baby hears the most basic language elements, such as "ba" and "da".
An amazing discovery is that the language center of newborns can distinguish different languages.
Professor Kuhl said that at first, the baby's brain was like a blank sheet of paper. She said: "Newborns can distinguish all languages." However, when they are 6 months old, most babies can only respond to the sounds they hear repeatedly from their parents and others. Usually, they only hear one language.
So what happens if a baby hears two languages at home or in a similar experiment? The results show that babies living in this situation will respond to these two languages, and their responses to these two languages come from different regions of the brain. Kurt explained: "There are two different circuits in a baby's brain. One of them is responsive to the mother tongue and the other is responsive to the second language.
Many studies have shown that the ability to switch from one area of the brain to another can make babies behave better in some ways, that is, multilingual environment can make them smarter.
In Professor Kuhl's view, let's enter the language center of newborns and see the process of their language development:
Development of Neonatal Language Center
At the age of three months, the baby's brain can already distinguish the pronunciation of hundreds of words, much more than the words he hears in his mother tongue. The brain began to organize around frequently heard words, and began to create pronunciation maps to process language more effectively. This period is the golden age of learning * * language. At first, babies can hear sounds in many different languages. If you don't use language, the connection between these pronunciations in the brain will be weak, and the connection between the languages they often hear will be strong. Although the baby can't understand you, he can improve his language ability through this early dialogue. When babies listen to you repeatedly, the parts of their brain related to language and speech will be stimulated. The more languages they hear, the better the growth and development of these parts of the brain.
At the age of 6 months, the baby will often say the syllables "Ma", "Mother", "Da", "Di" and "Ba". Soon, he will say more than four syllables together. When he was seven months old, he would say "Dad" or "Mom". Start to say the first sentence ("mom", "dad", etc.) about 8 months. ), that is, when he began to understand some simple instructions. At this time, he began to associate sound with objects. For example, when he hears the sound of "Woo-",he will think of the word "car". He will use his voice to emphasize his feelings or responses.
During the period of 13 to 20 months, the child's brain is more focused than before, or responds better to words. This change makes the brain process language faster, so children can better understand the sounds they hear. This process of listening and understanding is called "receptive language". Accordingly, the process of speaking is called "expression language". Don't worry, because children don't talk much. At this age, children can understand far more languages than they can speak themselves.
/kloc-sometime between 0/8 and 24 months, most babies can speak about 50 words. Soon after babies can use 50 words, their vocabulary will expand rapidly. They learn some new words every day. The explosive growth of vocabulary is related to the Wernicke area, one of the important language centers of the brain, which plays a great role in understanding the semantics of words. You will also be surprised to find that she began to put the words "drinking water" and "falling down" together.
When your child is about 2 years old, his communication skills will improve rapidly. She can master 200-250 words (expressive language), and you will notice that she learns new words every day and can combine several words. Your child may use the so-called "telegraph language"-short sentences composed of some basic information, such as "Dad played ball" and so on. She began to understand the role of communication and began to practice.
At the age of 3, my vocabulary will increase exponentially, and I have already started to make some sentences of 3 or 4 words. You will also notice that her word pronunciation ability has also improved. In the third year, her "receptive vocabulary" will increase by thousands. In addition, you will find that she understands the instructions you give her more and more, even the instructions related to time ("We will go to the park after you finish your snacks").
From this perspective, language ability depends on the language input in the first three years after birth (the sign language of hearing-impaired babies). If this kind of input is not normal, some skills, especially grammar and pronunciation, will be permanently blocked. The critical period of linguistics begins at about 5 years old and ends around adolescence. This is why if a person learns a new language after puberty, he will almost certainly take on a foreign accent.
Now, let's answer the previous question:
Multilingual aphasia
We know something about the development of the language center of the human brain, and the comments on aphasia caused by multilingual environment should be somewhat biased.
First of all, aphasia in children is a rare case, not a common phenomenon; These aphasic children are not all caused by multilingual input, but the way and method are the key to the problem. This is related to whether this language input is carried out in an active, natural, stress-free and mother tongue learning way. In fact, according to the doctor's description, these children suddenly became aphasic under pressure, and the aphasia disappeared after relaxation. Therefore, this situation cannot partially explain that multilingual input leads to aphasia. Judging from Noah's situation, children in many foreign countries are in a multilingual environment from birth, and there are more and more mixed-race families in China. There are many similar families in mygym International Early Education Center, and there are no reports that children of such families have language barriers.
Multilingual and multi-pronged approach
Then, for the sake of the baby's brain and language development, is it appropriate for the baby to learn two or more languages at the same time?
Children's brains are very open to the sounds and patterns of language. In fact, children have the ability to learn two or more languages at the same time, as long as they can maintain a stable relationship with caregivers who speak each language. This is not to say that everyone who takes care of him
Everyone must be bilingual or multilingual, but they can say so. For example, caregivers can speak Spanish when looking after children-parents of children must agree to do so, and parents can speak English when communicating with children, or mothers can speak English and fathers can speak Spanish. The key is to maintain stability. Children need reliable language partners when learning every language.
In today's society, being able to speak two or more languages at the same time is a valuable skill. If parents of young children take this as their goal, they will cultivate their children deliberately. It is no problem for a baby to learn many languages at birth. Because they can hear the pronunciation differences of many languages at birth. No matter what the "foreign language" is, as long as children keep listening, they can strengthen the brain's connection with this language, thus maintaining the ability to understand and repeat the language. At the age of 2-3, children can freely speak different languages with different people on different occasions, for example, speaking Spanish with caregivers, speaking English and Chinese with parents or Chinese with mothers, and speaking local dialects with grandmothers.
The key requirement for linguistics is that it must occur in the process of nursing relationship. In addition, although the brain is particularly open to different languages at this age, it is not always easy to learn more than one language, let alone learn it in one night. Many factors will affect the quality and speed of children mastering two languages, including how determined parents are to let their children master bilingualism or communicate more with users, how long the dialogue partners in each language take care of their children, how secure children feel in meeting their own needs, and how well caregivers communicate with their children in the corresponding language.
But impatient parents should remember that children who are exposed to multiple languages need to deal with two completely different communication systems. Although she can do it, the process of learning multiple languages will be slower than that of communicating in only one language.
What can you do:
Understand parents' linguistic goals.
It should be remembered that language is closely related to culture and will have a strong influence on the way children experience and understand the world around them.
In the process of taking care of children, such as changing diapers, dressing, and communicating with him: talking to him, reacting to what he said, and listening to what he said.
On the premise of respecting his mother tongue culture, let your child know the culture of the language you speak. For example, sing and recite poems in your language, but you are also welcome to sing and recite poems in his language, even though you can't speak it. You can invite your children's families to your home or kindergarten and let them sing or read stories or poems in their mother tongue.
Observe whether you can communicate clearly and clearly. Imagine that you don't understand what he is saying to you. Make sure it doesn't happen that the child can't understand you.