▶ Your Answer :
Schools can teach young children a foreign
language from young age. This can be a beneficial to young people in number of
ways while it can cause the cultural discrepancies.
Learning a language is beneficial for
children in several ways. The first and foremost reason is the career
potentials. With universal unemployment problems, a multilingual ability is a
definitely competitive edge over others.
Secondly, it boosts brain power. By using more than one language at a
time, the brain recognises different languages appropriately according to the
situation. In other words, the brain can perform more than one task at a time
which enhance the multitask abilities. At last, cultural understandability will
be acceptable by bilingual children. A person can have a broader understanding
of the race or culture because a language is a doorway to a particular culture.
Despite with all these advantages, there
are disadvantages for children learning a foreign language at an early age. By
learning a new language since early age, they may have a difficulty of cultural
discrepancies. One of many reasons for adults to learn a new language is the
personal growth. They learn a new language for business or for the school
requirements. Since adults are already fully mastered with native cultures,
learning a new language would not confuse them. Due to the intimate link
between language and culture, children will get a confusion of the cultural
discrepancies between native and foreign cultures. In the case of my Chinese
friends who has been residing in Australia since she was 7 years old, she used
to be friends with other Australian-Chinese. When she reached adolescent, her
self-identity was confusing. At that time, because she was not fully grasping
of one culture since she was having a mixed of both culture, she was not fit
into any cultural groups.
Even though children can grab multiple
skills that beneficial physically, learning a new language cause the confusion
in two distinct cultures leading the confusion of self-identity. Therefore, it
is not recommended school to teach a foreign language from young age. |