English as an Additional Language – Brain Facts

Scientists do not know how much a human being can learn or how much information a human mind can store. However, it is normal in many parts of the World for people to use two, three or more languages. It seems that people who grow up using only one language are not using all the power of the brain.

The mix-ups and mistakes that very young bilingual children make are part of growing up and learning to use the languages. Very early on, usually by the age of six, children understand the difference between the languages they speak, where to speak them, and which language to speak to whom. Bi/multilingual children understand better how languages work. They are more able to play with language and find new and interesting ways of using words and language.

Many bilingual people will do different kinds of thinking in one language or the other. For example, some people count in their home language or in the language they first learnt at school. Some may count the smaller numbers in the language they learnt first and then do the counting of the higher numbers in the language they used in school. Many bilingual people use both languages to do their thinking. Which they use depends on what they are thinking about.

Researchers have shown that bilingual people are better able to think divergently. There is proof that a child using more than one language has advantages in thinking and studying. There is no proof that keeping and developing the home language whilst developing skills in additional language harms a child’s progress at school.

The idea that it is only possible for a person to learn a new language before a certain age is untrue. Linguistic scientists believe that certain things happen in the human brain after the teenage years which makes learning another language quite a different experience and process from growing up learning two languages at the same time from an early age. In other words, additional language learners learn another language in different ways depending on their age.

It takes between one and two years to develop basic conversational skills in an additional language. It takes a further five to eight years to develop academic proficiency in an additional language.