LITTLE PIM BLOG
Kristof asks, "Primero Hay Que Aprender Espa ol. Ranhou Zai Xue Zhongwen." Why not both?
Nicholas Kristof was already one of my favorite New York Times journalists*, so I was thrilled to see him taking up the topic of foreign language teaching to kids in his recent column “Primero Hay Que Aprender Espanol, Ranhou Zai Xue Zhongwen” (translation: First learn Spanish, then study Chinese). If you missed it, Kristof makes the case that even though we are seeing a huge increase in parents teaching their young children Chinese, parents should really be encouraging their kids to learn Spanish. He notes that by 2050 our nation is on track to be 29% Spanish speaking and we are increasingly doing business with Latin American countries. He also makes the sobering case that more of us will be retiring to Latin America, where the living is cheaper. He says Chinese is more of a “specialty” language that will only help our kids if they become proficient and choose to work with China. which should remain in the foreseeable future one of the world’s economic super powers.
Here at Little Pim we have also seen the rising popularity in Chinese (it is our second best-selling language, neck in neck with French, after Spanish) and have noticed another trend – that more and more parents are choosing to introduce their children to TWO languages in addition to English. Thousands of parents in the United States are getting their babies and toddlers going on some combination of Chinese and Spanish or Chinese and French.
We field many calls and emails about this each week. Often parents explain that the Chinese is to give their kids what they think will be a competitive advantage in tomorrow’s economy, and the romance language is to honor a family heritage, or because one of the parents speaks that language and can help with it at home.
The benefits to kids of learning more than one language during early childhood are widely documented (it improves memory, advances verbal and math skills and analytic thinking). What about the benefits of two? Research shows that a child can learn up to three languages without any confusion. The learning results are even better if one of the languages is spoken at home, and if the languages have a different base, such as Chinese, which is tonal, and French, which is a romance language. A child will never confuse “sourire” with xiao' or '笑'. But they might confuse “sonreía” (Spanish) and “sourire” (French).
Ultimately choosing a language, or languages, for your child is a very personal choice that takes into account your hopes for your child’s future (will she be part of a multi-national company someday? Will he be able to travel, work and live abroad? Can she communicate with family members who don’t speak English?). But whatever language parents choose, their children will be getting a huge advantage over their monolingual peers. Spanish is by far still the leading language being studied in the U.S., with 88% of all foreign language classes in schools in Spanish (per the Today Show – link to the home page video here?).
Picking up a THIRD language is much easier once a child has learned a second one, so rather than dwell on “Which Language is Best,” debate, parents should just dive in and know their children may make their own choice later about what language they want to learn, and it will be fairly easy for them to make that change if they have a solid base in any language.
My own sons, Emmett and Adrian, have been learning French since they were babies, because of my family connection to France (I know Spanish or Chinese might be more “useful” in their careers) but if they get to high school and decide they want to learn Chinese or Spanish I will happily let them change, and know they will have a much easier time understanding the grammar rules and acquiring new vocabulary thanks to their years of French.
What do you think? Are you considering introducing your child to two languages? Do you know people whose kids are studying Chinese and a romance language? We’d love to hear from you. Take our new QUIZ on our homepage about which language/s your child should learn, if you haven’t chosen yet.
*Kristof is a Pulitzer prize winning journalist, who writes powerfully about pressing international women’s issues, such as inadequate maternal health care and the shameful ongoing slavery of young girls, notably in his book Half the Sky, written with his wife, Sheryl WuDunn. Kristof resides outside New York City with his wife and their three children: Gregory, Geoffrey and Caroline.
Learning French & Spanish: Our Trilingual Adventure with SpanglishBaby
Roxana of SpanglishBaby.com has posted her second Video Blog (Vlog) about language learning with Little Pim. If you’re new to this Vlog series, Roxana is using Little Pim to introduce French to her daughter Vanessa, four years old, who is already bilingual in Spanish and English. Roxana has been doing Skype interviews with me to get tips on making it fun for her daughter to learn French and learning about resources for her to use as a parent who is not fluent in the language her daughter is learning. This week she talks about some of the hurdles she is facing in trying to incorporate French into their daily routine. It's not as easy as she thought it would be! At the end of the video Roxana’s daughter and I sign a French song together so be sure to watch the whole video. Vanessa est adorable!
Read the blog here: http://www.spanglishbaby.com/2010/10/our-trilingual-adventures-with-little-pim-media/
Language Learning From Coast-to-Coast
On August 19th the New York Times ran a front-page story about the growing interest among New York parents raising their kids to be bilingual “Looking for Baby Sitters: Foreign Language a Must.” Here at Little Pim, we know this is more than just a New York, or an East Coast phenomenon. We talk every day with parents, grandparents and aunts and uncles from South Carolina to Montana to Seattle who are looking for ways to introduce the kids in their lives to a second language from the earliest age.
We see that it's not just people who speak two languages themselves that want their kids to learn a foreign language, but forward-looking parents everywhere. Parents are signing up their kids for immersion schools, buying language-teaching products and seeking out online communities to help them raise their kids with two languages in increasing numbers. They have read the widely available research that shows that learning a second language improves memory, enhances analytic skills and is generally a great work out for the brain. They also know it’s a global economy, and want their kids to have a place in it.
The cognitive benefits are still being studied, but it is clearly beneficial. As psychologist and researcher on bilingualism Dr. Ellen Bialystok says in the article, “bilingual children do better at complex tasks.” While this doesn’t mean your child will automatically jump to the head of his Kindergarten class because he can say "tengo hambre", one mother notes that her bilingual son “tested in the 99th percentile for the city’s gifted and talented program.”
Research shows that bilinguals tend to have more grey matter in their brain than monolinguals and are better able to multi-task and problem-solve.
Why wouldn’t you want your child to have these benefits? Well, some people still think learning a second language will “interfere” with learning English. The article totally dismisses this persistent myth, while acknowledging there could be a short-term delay in children finding the right word to express themselves in the right language. But what many parents believe outweighs this short term delay is that their kids are learning at the time they learn languages best (up to age six), that early exposure guarantees them the best possible accent, and they may eventually speak both languages perfectly.
Speaking a second language is a skill that opens up a lifetime of educational, social and professional possibilities. “We view it as a gift we are giving him,” said one of the dads interviewed. With millions of American parents giving this gift, our kids can become more full participants in the increasingly multi-lingual country and world in which we are raising them.
Little Pim & BlogHer 2010!
Last week women bloggers from all over the United States (and beyond) descended on New York City for the annual BlogHer conference, a weekend full of fun, learning, and networking. Being based in New York we decided that this would be the perfect opportunity to meet up with some of the wonderful blogging women we've worked with over the years and to make some new friends in the world of language blogs!
On Friday afternoon we held a special lunch at Bar Americain with six amazing women, all of whom own blogs with an emphasis on one of our favorite languages: Spanish. The time I spent with these bilingual bloggers was fantastic- the blogosphere is expanding as writers of varied cultures enter the scene to connect with waiting audiences.
Thank you Roxana, Ana, Melanie, Silvia, Rory and Carrie for making our Little Pim Language Lunch entertaining and informative!
Contest: "I want to teach my child a second language because...".
Babble.com blogger Elina Furman included Little Pim in a post entitled, "Best Products for Global Citizens". We couldn't have said it better ourselves! According to CNN.com, 66% of the world is bilingual. Also, 14% of students consider themselves fluent in two languages.
In her post, Elina shared why Little Pim was one of her product picks:
"Of course, I want him to be cultured and worldly, but with my workload and his attitude about sleeping anywhere but his crib, I don’t see us taking that trek anytime soon. So in honor of helping our kids develop a global awareness and a love of travel while still staying close to home, here are the products I’ve come to love."
Parents have many reasons for choosing Little Pim. In the comments section below, share why helping your child learn a second language is important to you. One person will win one DVD, one CD, or a pack of Word & Phrase cards!
If you share this link with your Facebook Friends by clicking on the button below, let us know by leaving a bonus "I shared" comment and increase your chances of winning! You can also send in a bonus comment by emailing info@littlepim.com.
Browse LittlePim.com to choose your prize. Good luck!
The Bilingual Child's Brain
If you haven't read 7 Steps to Raising a Bilingual Child by Dr. Naomi Steiner, I suggest that you pick up your copy as soon as possible. Dr. Steiner is an expert in the methods that are used to teach children more than one language, and she works closely with many bilingual and multilingual families.*
In 7 Steps to Raising a Bilingual Child, Dr. Steiner discusses the cognitive benefits to helping your child learn a second language. There is evidence that shows that multilingual children:
- have approved spatial and attentional abilities when they are elderly
- improved memory
- exhibit more creative use of language
- show a better ability to deal with distractions
Her book goes on to explain that studies have shown that bilingual children grasp rules and process information better; even math seems to be easier for them!
I find these scientific developments fascinating and they fuel my passion for helping parents get started on the road to child language acquisition. Over the next couple of weeks we'll be discussing the science behind foreign language learning with Dr. Naomi Steiner as our guest right here on the blog!
If you have any questions, please leave them as a comment below.
*childbooks.com
Fox61 with Sarah French
This morning I had the exciting opportunity to be interviewed by Sarah French (a Little Pim-approved surname!) on the Fox61 Connecticut morning show about foreign language learning for kids.
Sarah was interested in knowing why it's so much easier for young children to absorb a new language and at what age they should start -- you know the answer, the earlier the better! You can check out our discussion in the clip below or stop by the Why Starting Early is Key page of our site for a more in-depth explanation. Merci, Sarah!
NY Times article about increase in Chinese-learning in U.S.
Yesterday the New York Times published an article about the increased interest in Chinese-learning among students in the United States. Apparently more and more parents want their kids to learn Chinese in order to be competitive in the global economy and have the option to work with Chinese-owned companies; plus the Chinese government is sending subsidized Chinese language teachers into American schools. At Little Pim, we have been amazed to see how many Mandarin Chinese DVDs fly off our virtual shelves! Mandarin Chinese is the most popular Chinese dialect being taught today.
In the meanwhile, romance languages are on the decline in public schools. Wide cut-backs in foreign language classes have led to more parents looking to introduce second languages at home via books, DVDs and other materials. We talk to these parents every day at Little Pim, and are proud to be helping them fill that gap.
Click here to read about our Chinese products and watch a short video clip in Chinese: http://www.littlepim.com/store/chinese-language-for-kids/. You can also read my letter to the editor published in the New York Times in September commenting on the cut-backs and the importance of foreign language teaching in schools: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/20/opinion/lweb20foreign.html?_r=1
Thank you for your support of Little Pim, and for helping us to prepare our children to become active participants in an increasingly multi-cultural and polyglot world.
Read the New York Times article here: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/21/education/21chinese.html?hpw
Meeting Dr. Bialystok
Last weekend I attended a talk at a local Barnes & Noble by Dr. Ellen Bialystok, who was speaking about the cognitive benefits of children being bilingual. She is a Distinguished Research Professor of Psychology at York University in Canada. I have been following her work for a long time and have cited her research on bilingual children on our web site. Dr. Bialytsok walked us through studies she did on groups of monolingual and bilingual kids, comparing their reading, writing and processing skills. Her studies showed that not only did the bilingual children have the same level of vocabulary and ability to read in English as the monolingual kids, but in addition there were many cognitive benefits to learning a second language. The main one is that it is a great workout for the front lobes of the brain, which are in charge of all of our "executive functions". These functions include processing language, critical thinking and other intelligence related skills such as concentration and retention of information. She also shared evidence that showed that even limited exposure to a foreign language can modify how children think and enhance their cognitive skills. In other words, it’s not all or nothing and every bit counts.
After the talk I met Dr. Bialystok and learned that in 1981 she had been awarded the ACTFL-Paul Pimsleur Award for Research in Foreign Language Education; my father's legacy! What a thrill. She is making such an important contribution to this field of study and helping parents like me to feel confident that we are doing the right thing for our children by introducing them to a second language.
Learn more about why starting early with a second language is key:
http://www.littlepim.com/products/why-starting-early-is-key/
What do Dr. Bialystock and other scientists say about raising bilingual children?
New York Times Foreign Language Article
Last week the New York Times reported on the unfortunate rate at which foreign language education programs in schools in the northeast are being cut to help balance budgets. If you've been following my blog, you probably share in my belief that speaking a foreign language is no longer an expendable luxury but an important twenty-first century skill. The article quotes Marty Abbott, the director of education for the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages as saying, "In many cultures, a lot of business does not get done around the business table, it gets done in side conversations and social situations. If you can’t participate in those discussions, you get left out."
I'd add to that, that not only is speaking several languages good for business, it is equally important for early childhood brain development and social skills. It has been so exciting creating Little Pim and finding out that many parents out there share my conviction that kids should have access to language lessons as young as possible. We want kids to be introduced to languages at home or in preschool, and to then continue with language classes in elementary school.
If your school is eliminating its language programs, make sure the principal and the district know your views. I'm contacting mine today. I've also written a letter to the editor of the NY Times, and fingers crossed, it will be one of the ones chosen to be published.
Read the NY Times article here: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/13/education/13language.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=foreign%20languages%20fall%20as%20schools&st=cse
