As parents, we become familiar with the quintessential milestones in a child’s life—those special moments when a normally developing child takes his or her first step, eats solid food for the first time, or says his or her first word. We anticipate these moments, celebrate them, and wait for other milestones to unfold. We share photos of children smiling with their first lost tooth and videos of a first time on a bike without training wheels. We are joyous and proud.
Of course, we should be. These milestones are the recognizable signs of our children growing up and gaining independence. Watching our children develop the skills they will need to be productive and capable citizens of the world are points of pride in our parenting journeys. When it comes to language development, we proudly celebrate a child’s first word, applaud their first phrase and smile at their first complete sentence. However, what happens with our appreciation for the child’s development of language after that?
Exposure is a feasible first step that will help open our children’s minds, ears, and hearts to the differences in the sounds and rhythms of other languages and to develop appreciation for them.
As a society, we often encourage literacy as the next step. We teach the child the alphabet, to write their name, and to become familiar with the sounds of the words they use often. We laboriously welcome them to learn the words of the language that surrounds them, so that they are not just participants but communicators and correspondents within their respective societies. This is an incredibly important undertaking for the child and parents alike. It begs the question—what if, at this ripe age of supreme learning, we considered the possibility of exposing children to an additional language, one that they might develop and even perfect alongside their own first language? Would that be asking too much?
Dr. Maria Montessori brilliantly refers to the moment when the child first fluently expresses spoken and written language as an “explosion.” This explosion is an external manifestation of the knowledge the child has been acquiring during their rapid development. The child is brimming with an energetic impulse to express all that he or she has learned up to that point, is curious about, and wants to know. The means for doing this (the explosion) is through language—the words, phrases, and sentences we have celebrated since day one. Language is the instrument for expressing knowledge, and it is at the child’s unyielding disposal.
Since infancy, children have been experiencing a sensitive period for language. This means that they exhibit a naturally occurring interest in words, vocabulary, and the structure of language overall. During this peak time of language awareness, children’s faculties are primed for language acquisition. Therefore, it is an optimal time to introduce a second or even third language to the child. In order to harness this critical period of language development, exposure to multiple languages in Montessori and the home can (and should) begin as young as infancy and be extended through the ages of three to six.
This can be accomplished in the home by frequently (and proudly) speaking a native language around infants, babies, and toddlers with the understanding that they are absorbing the language around them. Young children can benefit from engaging in multicultural playgroups, where they might share the names of things in different languages. A multilingual caretaker can provide additional opportunities for children to interact with different languages.
In a Montessori school, exposure to multiple languages can be arranged by hiring a language teacher who might provide lessons for the children several times a week. Montessori schools can also take advantage of the multiple languages that may already be spoken by staff at the school. Teachers and staff who speak an additional language can share the names of things in different languages and teach children short common phrases while they naturally engage in classroom life. Parent volunteers can also be invited to share their languages with the class, particularly through songs.
Exposure is a feasible first step that will help open our children’s minds, ears, and hearts to the differences in the sounds and rhythms of other languages and to develop appreciation for them. Just as the doors of opportunity open during the child’s sensitive period for language, they close spontaneously, and then the task of learning a new language becomes a more taxing undertaking for both the adult and child. Why not take advantage of this naturally occurring phenomenon? In the same way that parents proudly cheer when a child takes his first step, let us also celebrate when a child makes a cross-linguistic connection, recognizes a cognate, or makes a genuine attempt to say hello or engage in conversation in a new language. Let us pluralize the notion of language so that we expand children’s capacity to engage fully and truly in the multilingual world that surrounds them.
Tomorrow’s Child / October 2019 / Pg. 20
