Hallo! Ciao! Hola! Allô! Hello! Welcome to the infinite world of languages in which you and I are a part. I grew up in a small town in Italy with a German mother and an Italian father. For the first few years of my life, my parents only spoke German to me at home while I learned to speak Italian in kindergarten, church, and our neighborhood. Later, my brother and I began to speak only German with our mother and Italian with our father. Having a father who was enthusiastic about languages has played an important role in our family. Even at a young age, he made me listen to cassettes and records with Bible stories in English, which were souvenirs he had brought me from a trip to the United States. I can still hear him singing Spanish hymns for Sabbath opening with me trying to sing along. Even though I did not understand the meaning of each individual word, I liked both the harmony and rhythm of them. I had even convinced myself that I was able to speak Spanish by simply adding the letter “s” to each Italian word. Both my mother and my father used to read me Bible stories in German before I went to bed and often prayed the popular children’s prayer with me, “Müde bin ich, geh’ zur Ruh” (“Weary now, I go to rest”). With time, I knew these stories by heart and repeated them over and over again. These early experiences with foreign languages would influence my whole life. Years later I became a language teacher myself and I am still convinced that there are several reasons why children should learn a foreign language.
Brain /brān/
Studies have shown that people who are bilingual are better at tasks that require multi-tasking and attention focusing than monolinguals. Brain scans show they have more gray matter in the regions of their brain that are involved in executive function. The hypothesis is that the effort to constantly choose the right language at the right time provides a type of “mental gymnastics” for bilinguals which gives them extra practice in focusing their attention. These benefits show up early – new research shows that even babies less than a year old who are exposed to multiple languages show different cognitive patterns in their brain when compared to monolinguals. In fact, some researchers argue that the best way to have smarter kids is to expose them to multiple languages when they are young.
Mother tongue /mʌðə ˈtʌŋ/
Years ago people believed that learning a second language would confuse a child. Now, research shows that children who study a foreign language tend to perform better in their native language than non-bilingual students, as measured on standardized tests. By learning a new language, young learners gain a better understanding of their own language. The study of a second language significantly increases first language skills with reading, vocabulary, grammar, and communication. As Goethe said, “Those who know nothing of foreign languages know nothing of their own.” It is like only seeing the color blue your whole life, and then discovering the colors red and yellow. Suddenly, children can see the whole spectrum of colors and understand how they relate to each other.
Empathy /em-pə-thē/
Dr. Katherine Kinzler, of Cornell University, tested monolingual and bilingual children on a task which required them to consider someone else’s perspective to understand her meaning. Children in bilingual environments performed better than monolingual children. As Dr. Kinzler explains, “Children in multilingual environments have social experiences that provide routine practice in considering the perspectives of others: they have to think about who speaks which language to whom, who understands which content, and the times and places in which different languages are spoken.”
Connection /kə-ˈnek-shən/
When you can speak to people in their own language you deepen connections and understanding. Learn a foreign language as a child and you have a lifetime to benefit from cross-cultural friendships both inside and outside the church, broader career opportunities, exciting travel adventures, and deeper insights into how others see the world. Learn Mandarin and you can speak with more than a billion people worldwide. Spanish gets you approximately another 420 million. If you already speak English, you are able to speak to almost half the world’s population! While English has become the lingua franca of the world, learning a foreign language (or two) increases opportunities for connection and opens the door to the many benefits of multilingualism. For good reason, our church is called “International Missionary Society,” because it connects people from all over the globe who share the same beliefs and values, as well as bringing the good news of Jesus and His second coming to different parts of the world.
by Manuela Di Franca
Master of Education in Teaching German
and English as a Foreign Language | Germany
