▶ Your Answer : Everyone recognizes the importance of learning foregin languages in this global era. Unfortunately, the later one waits to begin learning another langugae, the harder it becomes. In this sense, I disagree that children should start learning language after they start school for two reasons: younger children have an advantage at language acquisition, and children who are not attending school have more free time to study languages.
To begin with, the younger the children, the faster they learn the language. Typically, children are at the stage of developing language and expanding vocabulary. During that stage, if they learn several languages, they have abilities to acquire all those languages simultaneously all to the similar degree. Therefore, if children learn second language, they will be fluent for both their first and second languages. For example, I have very hard time learning English, since I started to learn it during middle school years. However, all my friends were already very fluent in English because they had started going to English institution at the age of four, even before going to the kingdergarden. If I had learned English earlier, I would have been fluent in English as my friends were. In this regard, children learn English faster than they learn when they become adult.
Furthermore, children have a lot of time to study languages. Generally, children not going to school are bored by staying home all day and pester their parents to do something fun. By letting them to study in the English institution for kids, they will both have fun and become fluent English speakers. To be specific, my brother who is five years old now has attended the special English institution for kids since he was three-year old. He went there, because he pestered my mom too much, but after going there, my mom is now free from him during the time he is there. The real benefit is that he is better at speaking English than I am. Therefore, he's pretty much prepared for his elementary school English class which he will take soon. If he had not studied English , he would have gained English and kept pestering my mom. Therefore, for children who do not attend school, it seems favorable to study English.
In a nutshell, children can learn English much faster when they are young, and they can have fun and valuable time before attending school. For these reasons, I disagree that children should not learn foregin language before starting the school. |