Is elementary school too early to teach foreign languages?
Gladys Lipton
Is there any advantage to teaching languages in primary school? Is there a risk of overloading children’s brains? Aren’t other subjects more important at that age?
I recently got a note from a mother whose daughter’s school had a program teaching Chinese and Spanish to elementary students. Will it result in linguistic confusion? she asked. It’s a good question, but it’s not a worry. Children under the age of ten are absolutely hard-wired to learn languages. In many countries they learn three or four, oft en at the same time—with no ill eff ects. In America, multilingual though it is, the tradition has been not to start language study until high school—and American children are poorer for it. Now, though, Americans are recognizing what a joyous thing language learning is for children, and early language programs are gaining momentum.
Th e language profession calls them ‘FLES’ (Foreign Language in the Elementary School) or ‘Early Language Learning’ programs.
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Th e theoretical underpinning for FLES comes from studies of the brain. Researchers say that it’s most receptive to foreign language before the age of ten. (Readers fortunate enough to have started their study of a foreign language in childhood probably speak it without an accent.) Aft er that age the brain begins to lose the plasticity it had in childhood. Does this mean that you can’t learn a foreign language well if you wait until secondary school to start? Not at all, but you have to work harder at it.
In addition to this ‘neurological’ advantage, there’s also a good deal of value in simply exposing children to the sounds and rhythms of other tongues. Part of learning languages is getting past the notion that English is the ‘right’ or only way to talk and other languages are ‘funny’. Children who take FLES outgrow such attitudes rapidly, and don’t have the inhibitions that teenagers oft en have when they start a language. Researchers have found that children under ten not only love to imitate new sounds, they’re highly receptive to other people’s customs, traditions, and diff erent ways of doing things.
FLES can open children’s minds to other cultures, since culture goes along with language study. Th is is especially true in the early grades of elementary school, where songs, games, and the arts are part of the learning.
What results can you expect from a FLES program? Above all, greater profi ciency: students who start a language early and stick with it achieve higher scores on Advanced Placement tests in the language than those who start in their teens. What explains this? A great deal of research has shown that success in language learning depends on three things: time on task, motivation, and frequency or intensity of learning sessions. All three fl ow from starting a foreign language early. Students who start early automatically get more exposure time; and because language learning in elementary school is fun, they’re likely to look forward to continuing to study languages. Th ey’ll be more motivated.
But even if all that’s true, some may ask, isn’t the grade school day already full? How can we squeeze in another subject, even if it’s worthwhile?
Part of the answer is that, according to emerging research, time spent on FLES is not subtracted from the rest of the curriculum.
Th e interdisciplinary approach used by FLES teachers to teach languages reinforces what students learn in other classes: when a FLES teacher works on days of the week, weather, maps, shopping, and other real-life topics in the language class, she or he is reviewing what is taught by other teachers about numbers, dates, geography, temperature, colors, and money. In short, where FLES is integrated into the curriculum, students tend to do better on tests (in English) in Reading, Language Arts, Social Studies and Mathematics.
For all these reasons, many parents are interested in interna-tionalizing the schools attended by their children, but they can be daunted by the perceived cost of establishing a FLES program. Th ere is certainly no magical answer to this problem, but there are many options. Where regular classroom teachers are fl uent in a foreign language and have been trained in language-teaching methods, they can form the nucleus of a program. Sometimes it makes most sense for several classes or several schools to share the services of one or more traveling language teachers. In some cases, videoconferencing technology can help stretch limited language-teaching staff to cover more schools. It is a good idea for parents, school administrators, and other community members to work together to identify appro-priate program goals and realistic resource expectations.
To return to that mother’s question, should we teach foreign languages in the elementary school? Th e answer is unequivocally:
Yes!
About the author
Gladys Lipton is currently the Director of America’s National FLES*
(pronounced ‘fl estar’) Institute. She has directed national teacher development at the University of Maryland, funded by many national grants. Her past positions include Program Coordinator in Foreign Languages and ESOL for Anne Arundel County Public Schools in Maryland and Director of Foreign Languages for the New York City Public Schools. She has taught foreign languages at all school (K-12)
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and university levels. Dr. Lipton has served as Editor of the newsletter of the Northeast Conference on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (NECTFL) and is currently a reviewer for Foreign Language Annals, a publication of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL). She has chaired the national FLES committees of both the American Association of Teachers of Spanish (AATS) and the American Association of Teachers of French (AATF); in addi-tion, she has served as an Associate Editor of the AATS publication Hispania and as a board member, vice president, and national presi-dent of AATF. Dr. Lipton has presented many workshops, nationally and internationally, for teachers, parents, and administrators, and she currently serves as a foreign-language consultant for schools, school districts, and foreign-language organizations.
Suggestions for further reading
In this book: Other chapters discussing language acquisition by children include 8 (pidgins and creoles), 13 (babies and language), 15 (language and the brain), 22 (language deprivation), and 23 (sign languages).
Elsewhere:
Curtain, H. and C. A. Dahlberg. Languages and Children: Making the Match (Pearson/Prentice Hall, third edition 2004). Th is book off ers information about FLES research, methods, and curriculum which may be of help to all those working with FLES programs.
Lipton, G. Practical Handbook to Elementary Foreign Language Programs (FLES*) (Blueprints for Learning, fourth edition 2004). Th is book of-fers assistance in planning and supporting FLES* programs, including rationale and research, diff erentiation of instruction for students, cur-riculum and assessment of programs and students, and suggestions for FLES* advocacy and promotion.
Lipton, G., L. Lucietto, and H. Saxon, eds. Success Stories: Promoting FLES*
Programs (AATF, 2004). Th is publication contains successful practices in promoting and maintaining FLES* programs through creative and practi-cal methods and by involving many members of school communities.
Web site:
http://www.gladys-c-lipton.org
Th is is a Web site of the National FLES* Institute and contains current information about FLES, including recommended references.