What Bilingual Children Can Teach Us About Adult Language Learning

What Bilingual Children Can Teach Us About Adult Language Learning What Bilingual Children Can Teach Us About Adult Language Learning Its easy to be jealous of children  who grow  up bilingual.They  seem to effortlessly learn new words and develop fluent pronunciation,  while we adults review the same material over and over and struggle to trill our rs.Research shows that children are better language learners than adults, but dont let this discourage you.Recent research  on the human brain has found that the changes in brain chemistry needed to  learn another language  are possible at any age  age, from birth to the elderly years. So its never too late to learn a language!There has been an explosion of research in recent years on how bilingual children learn, ranging from how they  use memory  and learn new vocabulary  to how they  switch between languages to express different emotions.What Bilingual Children Can Teach Us About Adult Language LearningThis research can tell us a lot not just about how children learn, but how adults learn, too. By examining how children so masterfully learn languages, we can discover some ways to improve our own learning as adults. How Bilingual Children LearnThe early years of childhood are a time when all childrenâ€"monolingual or bilingualâ€"rapidly  learn language skills.Through ongoing  immersion and practice, they begin to understand what words mean and how to use them in the proper contexts.Mommy points and says, Lets play with the ball! The toddler picks up the ball and says, Bah. Mommy excitedly replies, Yes, ball! Eventually bah becomes ball, and the child has learned a new word.At first glance, the process of learning a language can seem incredibly daunting, says Skott Freedman, a professor at Ithaca College.  Yet this potentially arduous task is typically executed with little effort by children barely a year old. In fact, studies show that children can learn a word in as little as one exposure.Freedman has found that it doesnt take much more effort for children to learn two languages than it does for them to learn one. Young childrens brains are d esigned to  pay attention  to language cues and develop language skills, so they can learn two languages almost as easily as they can learn one.Bilingual children use language in purpose-driven ways with a focus on communication rather than getting it right.In her book  Raising Bilingual Children,  Carey Myles  notes that during everyday conversations, caregivers naturally focus on the message of childrens language more than in how its delivered. When a child says, I thirsty, the caregiver doesnt spend much time correcting the child or  demanding that she say, I am thirsty. Instead, she responds by getting the child something to drink.Professors Kendall King and Alison Mackey echo this point in their book,  The Bilingual Edge.  They say that childrens language learning is  pleasurable, intimate and interwoven with everyday life and suggest  playful, interactive language learning activities that are connected with routine things  like eating or getting dressed.What this means for adu lts:Find ways to immerse yourself. Think of all the input a bilingual child gets and try to emulate this constant exposure  in your life. The more you surround yourself with input in your target language, the faster and better youll learn. Listen to foreign language music, watch TV shows, read the news in your target language and talk with  people.Seek out real-life practice.  Find a conversation partner  or  conversation club, join an online  language exchange website  and visit stores or restaurants where people speak your target language. Your goal should be to participate in  two-way conversational exchanges where you can communicate with real people.Make it fun. Children dont sit around looking at flashcards (all the time)! They play dress-up and drive toy  trucks and run around the park. Find ways to make your language learning fun, too. Read or watch videos about things that interest youâ€"whether thats  sewing, baseball  or woodworkingâ€"and make friends with native speakers who share your interests so you can  practice speaking  while going for a run or knitting together.Kids Writing vs. SpeakingLearning to read is different from learning to speak.Bilingual children learn to speak through everyday immersion, but they need explicit instruction in order to learn to read and write in more than one  language.Children learn to read best when they have an understanding and familiarity with the  culture  and context associated with a piece of writing.  Schema theory suggests that children who arent familiar with the context may have trouble making accurate predictions about what will come next in a story, and being able to make predictions is important to reading success.Consider the phrase, Dumbo is an elephant  with big ears. A child whos familiar with the story of Dumbo  can quickly read this sentence.  Even if the child has never seen the  words elephant and ears, he can make quick guesses about what words they might be, since he knows that Dumbo is an e lephant and that big ears are his defining feature.On the other hand, a child who doesnt know anything about Dumbo will have more trouble understanding this sentence. Shell have to sound out every word in the sentence and may second-guess herself even if she reads the words correctly.Because of the difficulties that arise when children dont have the cultural understanding needed to understand a  piece of writing, some schools have found that non-native English speakers learn to read in English better when theyre provided with background or cultural information prior to reading a text.What  this means for adults:Improve your reading skills by learning about current events and culture first. No matter how good your language skills are, you wont fully  understand a foreign language text if you dont understand the context behind it. Start by familiarizing yourself â€"by reading or listening to material in your native languageâ€"with the  culture and current events of the people who spea k your target language. This will improve your reading in your target language and is  likely  to (re-)inspire your love of another culture, place and language!Do more listening and speaking.  Bilingual children typically learn through speaking and listening and need explicit instruction in reading and writing, but its often the opposite for adults. Adults typically learn with  written material like textbooks, dictionaries and workbooks.  Seek out opportunities to supplement your book learning with opportunities to speak and listen.  Some  textbooks  come with audio CDs or provide access to online audio files, and you can find many opportunities to listen to music or watch videos.Learn with  FluentU. FluentU  provides foreign language videos that native speakers actually watch, along with interactive subtitles, translations and even active learning tools  like multimedia flashcards,  quizzes and custom vocabulary lists. Use the content here as conversation fodder when practicing you r language skills  with your  friends, teachers, tutors, conversation partners and fellow language learners!Bilingual Learning ChallengesNot everything comes easily for kids! Even they have a hard time with some aspects of language learning.For example, bilingual children typically go through a period where they use words from both languages  in the same sentences. A young child might say something like, I want some agua or Lets vaminos!Grammar rules can  also be mixed up. A child whos learning  English (which has a subject-verb-object structure) and a language like Turkish (which has a subject-object-verb structure) might say something like, I want to store go, instead of I want to go to the store.Bilingual children may also experience a silent period where they understand the language spoken to them but do not speak it. A child whos spoken to primarily in English may understand the French her mother speaks but not actively respond in French, particularly if she knows that her moth er also understands English. After more exposure,  shell  eventually start to speak in French, but it may take time.What this means for adults:Focus on  grammar structures.  You cant easily turn off the grammar rules your brain is wired to use. Thats why its important to  learn how the grammar structures work in your target language. This will help you be conscious of when you need to do things differently. And if youre not comfortable with grammar in general, consider getting  a book about your native languages grammar  so you can understand how it  compares to the new grammar youre learning.Stay silent for a little while, if you need to. Frustrating as it may be, its normal to understand whats being said to you but be incapable of producing a fluent response. Recognize that your speaking capacity will lag behind your listening capacity, and pat yourself on the back for the excellent listening comprehension skills youre developing! Just dont stay silent for too long. Practice is th e only way to develop the abilityâ€"and confidenceâ€"to say exactly what you want to say.Children Are ResilientPart of the reason children are so good at language learning is because they arent afraid of what others think. Theyre curious about everything and enthusiastic to try out the new words they hear.Children also use language as a tool to  achieve goals,  rather than an end in and of itself. They dont care about learning to speak Italian fluently or learning to say hello in Japanese. They simply want something and will use whatever method they can to communicate their needs and desires. A child is highly motivated to speak when he needs to do so to  tell someone he  wants a drink of milk or get a toy his older brother is playing with.What this means for adults:Dont be afraid to make mistakes. Remember that some of the best learning happens after youve  made a very memorable mistake.Cultivate an innate sense of curiosity and enthusiasm for learning. Learning should be fun! Forg et about the outcomes  or the time its taking you to achieve them. Focus on what you enjoy about the language youre learning.Admit when you dont know something.  Its okay if you dont know how to conjugate a certain verb or which tense to use in a particular situation. Native speakers are usually more than happy to help you learn their language, so go ahead and ask for help!Think about your  goals.  But dont stop at thinking. Put yourself in situations where you need to speak your target language in order to  get thing done.  Dont get so caught up in studying vocabulary lists that you forget why youre learning the language. Think about what your learning goals are and how you plan to use this language in the future.Learning another language is difficult but also can beâ€"even should beâ€"a lot of fun. By acting a bit more like a bilingual child, you can improve your learning and make sure that you enjoy the process.And One More ThingIf youre eager to get started on that process right away, youll love learning with FluentU. FluentU makes it possible to learn languages  from music videos, commercials, news and inspiring talks.With FluentU, you learn real languagesâ€"the same way that real people speak them. FluentU has a wide variety of videos, like movie trailers, funny commercials and web series, as you can see here:FluentU App Browse ScreenFluentU has interactive captions that let you tap on any word to see an image, definition, audio and useful examples. Now native language content is within reach with interactive transcripts.Didnt catch something? Go back and listen again. Missed a word? Hover over or tap on the subtitles to instantly view definitions.FluentU Interactive TranscriptsYou can learn all the vocabulary in any video with FluentUs quiz mode. Swipe left or right to see  more examples for the word you’re learning.FluentU Has Quizzes for Every VideoAnd FluentU always keeps track of vocabulary that you’re learning. It uses that vocab to give you a 100% personalized experience by recommending videos and examples.