Teach English in Yongan Zhen - Bazhong Shi

Language skills begin in the womb when a fetus's hearing first develops/ They begin to listen to the language of their mother. Once the baby is born they recognize their mother tongue. Though, a baby is born with the ability to learn any language and multiple languages. When babies hear a word repeatedly their brain forms neural connections, which is a step towards their speech. The brain of a child is like a sponge. It retains so much information that by the time a child reaches 3 years of age, their brain has formed approximately 3 trillion connections- double the amount that adults have. A 3-year-old's brain is twice as active as an adult's brain. Young children learn language through simple exposure. It is possible to learn a language later on in life but the process is slower and more difficult. The best time for language development Is from birth to age 10. The first few years of life, however, are most important. Young children need to constantly hear language in order to learn it. Someone should talk to them, read to them, sing to them, and play with them. A baby's babbling efforts are a great sign of language development and should be responded to. Over 90% of brain growth happens during the first 3 years, and the way it grows is through experience. Neurologically, infancy is a critical stage because cortical development is influenced by the amount of central nervous system activity which is stimulated by experience. Young children need interaction and they learn best through play. Interaction with a human is vital for the baby to learn a language. Many people think that a baby can learn a language from videos, TVs, and screen time, but a lot of studies show that this is just not true. It's a pattern called "video deficit." One study, in particular, was done of 9-month-old infants who were exposed to the Mandarin Chinese language via twelve 25 minute lab visits. Each infant received one of three exposure styles: live social presentation, the same foreign speakers and material presented on video, or an audio recording of the same speakers and material. The conclusion was that only the infants exposed to live Mandarin speakers were able to distinguish the foreign phonemes as well as native Mandarin-learning infants. However, no learning occurred when exposure occurred through video displays or audio recordings. It is the lack of interactivity that is troublesome. Different studies show that while toddlers cannot learn language from non-interactive videos, they can learn language from FaceTime/ video chatting with someone. This can be due to the fact that video chat facilitates communication between the two parties, unlike a toddler watching a video. Parents play a very significant role in the language development of their children. One study called The 30 Million Word Gap done by Betty Hart and Todd R. Risley showed that 86% to 98% of 42 children's vocabularies consisted of words also found in their parents' vocabulary. Also in that study, it was revealed that the language skills of a 3-year-old can predict their language skills at 10 years old too. The most shocking part of the study shows the difference between early childhood experiences between different socioeconomic statuses. The average child on welfare was hearing half as many words (616 per hour,) as the average working-class child (1,251 words per hour) and less than a third of the average child in a professional family (2,153 words per hour.) By age 4, an average child of a professional family will have accumulated experience with approximately 45 million words. A child in a working-class family will have accumulated experience with 25 million words. A child in a welfare family will have accumulated experience with 13 million words. That is an enormous difference, but that isn't all. Along with the number of words, the quality of words is important too. The average child in a professional family was hearing 32 affirmations, to 5 prohibitions per hour. Which translates to a ratio of 6 encouragements to 1 discouragement. The average child of a working-class family was hearing 12 affirmations to 7 prohibitions per hour- a ratio of 2 encouragements to 1 discouragement. The average child of a welfare family was hearing 5 affirmations and 11 prohibitions per hour- a ratio of 1 encouragement to 2 discouragements. It is difficult for children to learn when they are constantly being discouraged. Parents/ caregivers play a major role in the language development of children. References: https://www.pnas.org/content/115/40/9859 https://www.aft.org/sites/default/files/periodicals/TheEarlyCatastrophe.pdf