Advantages And Disadvantages Of Language Acquisition

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Your toddler may think that he or she's a complete superhero -- and when it comes to language acquisition, it's actually true! In particular, compared to adult language learners. Lena Sandvik in Boston says "I'm amazed that my 15 and 11 year olds have grown up to be completely bilingual. My accent and those silly, grammatical errors still haven't disappeared, even after 15 years in the country." As easy as acquiring multiple languages is for small children, the single most important factor in language learning is the quantity of spoken language addressed to the child. So, if you worry that you aren't providing enough, here are a few tricks to boost your superhero's inherent powers. Other kids: Join (or start) a playgroup for the second language. …show more content…

"My 3-year old son is a really big "Bob de Bouwer" (Bob the Builder) fan," says Martijn Fredriks. "So now we always watch it in Dutch, and he's even started speaking in Dutch when he plays with the Bob the Builder toys." Be creative: The trick is to give the child lots to talk about, so draw out that conversation! Encourage them to make up their own stories, play dress-up and pretend in the second language. Even painting, working with sidewalk chalk, or molding clay usually creates more vocabulary than art! Older children may enjoy calling or using a webcam for calls overseas (one such free service is Skype). Outside the box: Isabella Vellaccio, a mother in Washington DC, who reached beyond the obvious says, "I wanted my son to hear Italian from someone else than just me, and the playgroups were all during my working hours." Isabella decided to attend the church coffee after the Italian mass on Sundays. "The older Italian parishioners were thrilled to see him learn Italian." Needless to say, with that much attention, and Italian cookies, he loved

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