Using playtime to make your baby bilingual
Using playtime to make your baby bilingual
- May 6, 2010
- Virginia Mann, cognitive sciences professor, is featured in the Wall Street Journal May 6, 2010
From the Wall Street Journal:
Can a baby easily learn how to say hola, bonjour or ni hao? A growing number of companies are offering classes, DVDs and play groups that teach babies and toddlers foreign languages. The idea is to offer instruction using fun settings, images and songs to make language engaging. Still, we were skeptical—our nearly 2-year-old daughter was barely speaking English. We also worried that bombarding her with a new language would confuse her. But Virginia Mann, a professor of Cognitive Sciences at the University of California Irvine, says there is little evidence indicating that learning more than one tongue can clutter a young brain and that babies have the sophistication to pick up new sounds. "From the time of birth, the left hemisphere of the brain is wired expecting to learn language and absorbs it as soon as it is provided," Dr. Mann says.
For the full story, please visit http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405274870396110457522617357585098....
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