Why a Foreign Language Belongs in the Preschool Curriculum

Learning new words at the age of three, four, or five is natural. These children are still learning broader language each day. Their vocabulary is far from complete.A foreign word is simply another addition to their dictionary. The same does not apply to the nine-year-old. She is accustomed to a specific range of words. Adding new, and especially, foreign language to her spectrum requires more effort towards understanding, pronouncing, and remembering. Observations show that preschoolers simply pick-up the new words, where as older students require focused concentration and more repetition of the same curriculum in order to move on to the next level. This process is much quicker for the very young child.

Why do some children have a clearly pronounced accent, while others speak as if they were a native? Over the years, I found a correlation between children's ability to sing perfect notes to talking without an accent. This clearly has to do with having a good ear for sounds and the ability to repeat these sounds. I also noticed that the younger the children are, the more accent-free their pronunciations are. However, older children who have a perfect singing voice, also have no difficulty in perfectly repeating the foreign words, even if they just heard them for the first time. On the same scale, children who were not born natural singers, have an American accent that pronounces itself more with each additional year in age.

Having an accent, however, has nothing to do with the ease, or difficulty, of speaking and understanding a foreign language. I have noticed that older children, who love problem-solving activities, also love the challenge of translating from one language to another. Very young children simply seem to understand that there are two different words for the same thing. They do not think about it very much. For older children, it requires conscious and active translating in their minds, in which one word equals another. The challenge is remembering the equations. Older children who do not enjoy problem-solving activities have a more difficult time in learning the language. It is with any other skill. Everyone has a special gift for some, but not so much for others. I believe this also pertains to the study of foreign languages.

Foreign language has become a mandatory requirement for earning a Baccalaureate degree. It makes perfect sense to introduce children to another language as early as possible. Why not begin in preschool? Besides fostering problem-solving skills, we also teach children about diversity and the acceptance of others. These are lessons for a lifetime.