By Colleen Dorsey (St Joseph News-Press) June 2001
�Some of the brain research done in recent years points to a window of opportunity for learning a second language that closes at around age 10,� says Scottie Mabry-Howles, acting director of Children First School, whose preschool program includes beginning instruction in Spanish.
�If children learn it early, they are more likely to be able to know that language later on, in school and in life,� Ms. Mabry-Howles says.
Indeed, research by the Neuroscientific company indicates the brains of babies as young as infants are �wired� to hear and process the sounds of foreign languages, even as they�re beginning to learn their own native language.
The company markets a baby toy called �The Babbler,� recommended for infants to children 1 year of age, which approximates a full range of different phonetic sounds that occur in various languages.
While Children First School used to include French in its preschool program, for the past year and a half Martha Cochran has been teaching Spanish to children as young as 3 and 4 years old who are enrolled at the school.
Born in the country of Colombia, Ms. Cochran�s own mother tongue was Spanish until she came to the United States at the age of 4.
�It is easier for the mind of a child to switch back and forth between different languages,� she says.
At Children First, she gets her young charges used to hearing the sound of the Spanish language, mostly through catchy songs.
�It�s easier to make an imprint (on their minds),� Ms. Cochran says.
And children exposed to a foreign language early on are more likely to use better pronunciation and have a more authentic accent than those who learn the same language later in life. That�s because a child�s tongue is not yet firmly engrained into the phonetics of his native language, she says.
Spanish may be especially handy these days, with recent Census figures indicating an increase in the number of Hispanics living in the country. But being armed with any other foreign language (or several of them) is a probably a good idea as the global community, via the Internet, becomes more interconnected.
�It�s almost necessary for the future,� Ms. Cochran says. �I mean, it�s pretty sad. Here we are in America, and we are so stuck in our language. �You go to other countries and they want to speak English to you.�