Early exposure to second language

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Early exposure to second language

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Early childhood is the best time for a child to learn a second language because the babies brain is characterized by neuroplasticity. There is this flexibilty in the baby's brain that allow him or her to pick up naturally and intuitively the sounds, the structures, the rules of the language. There's also many more cells in the baby's brain that allows him to make many more neural-connections. These connections are overproduced in the early years and eventually are pruned by age ten and twelve so these extra connections allow the baby to master multiple languages something that we can't do later on. Babies also have fewer inhibitions. They're not afraid of making mistakes and at the same time babies and children also receive the simplified language and so they can pick up a new language by hearing the language that adults address to them which often full of repetition, it is simpler, it is clear it has easier words and so children with the simplified language they can eventually they have the right data on which to build a second language.

See Simona Montanari, PhD's video on Early exposure to second language...

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Simona Montanari, PhD

Professor

Simona Montanari is Assistant Professor in the Department of Child and Family Studies at California State University, Los Angeles, where she teaches graduate and undergraduate courses on language development and second language acquisition in childhood. She received a PhD in Linguistics from the University of Southern California specializing in language development in monolingual and multilingual children. Dr. Montanari has published her research in prestigious peer-reviewed journals and she is regularly invited to present on early bilingualism and trilingualism locally and internationally. Dr. Montanari has also been involved in the creation and implementation of an Italian-English dual language program in the Glendale Unified School District, for which she continues to work as a consultant. Dr. Montanari has two trilingual and tri-literate daughters, six and seven years of age.

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