Absorbing a Second Language in a Toddler Classroom

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Absorbing a Second Language in a Toddler Classroom

• Presented by
• Kumiko Sakai and Claudia Stafford

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• Neuroscience Research
• Neuroscience has become a major field of research
  and brain-imaging technology has become very
  sophisticated. New brain imaging focuses on
  three elements of brain organization and
  operation
• 1. Chemical composition
• 2. Electrical transmission
• 3. Distribution of blood through the brain
• CAT scans (computerized axial tomography), MRI
  (magnetic resonance imaging), and PET (position
  emission tomography) allow scientists to observe
  the anatomy of the brain in 3-deminsion, observe
  brain activity, and trace brain energy as parts
  of the brain are activated.

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• Organization of the Brain
• The function of the human brain is based on
  several billion brain cells called Neurons,
  trillions of connections called Synapses that
  receive and send electrical signals.
• Myelin is a thin fatty insulation that forms
  around the axons that transmit messages between
  neurons. It performs the same purpose as the
  plastic insulation around electrical wires. The
  more the brain connections are insulated, the
  more efficiently they work and the more likely
  they are to survive.

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The Brain at Birth When a child is born, the
brain is a mass of neurons ready to be wired or
programmed though use and experience. The
neurons that control bodily functions such as
breathing, reflexes, and heartbeat are already
hardwired at birth. There are billions of other
neurons that are ready to be connected but they
have to be used in order for the circuitry to be
formed. Brain development is the result of a
complex interaction between nature and nurture.
The brain is an adaptive organ that is shaped by
experiences and interactions with the
environment. It is the experiences of very early
childhood that determines which neurons are used
to wire the different circuits of the brain. A
newborns brain makes connections at an
incredible pace as the child absorbs his
environment. In the first 3 years of life, the
number of synaptic connections multiplies to
about 1,000 trillion, many more than he will have
as an adult.
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Sensitive Periods Neuroscientists have found
the brain learns certain skills most easily
during particular critical periods or
sensitive periods. These are times when a
part of the brain absorbs new information more
easily and grows more connections than at any
other time in life. Most of these sensitive
periods occur during the first years of life.
The brain grows larger, and becomes much more
active in response to what the five senses absorb
from the environment. During sensitive periods,
the brain is more plastic. It is both more open
to and susceptible to the influence of
experience.
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• General Findings on Early Brain Development
• A childs brain is not mature at birth.
• A childs brain is changed by experience.
• The timing of experiences is important.

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• Early Language Acquisition
• Dr. Patricia Kuhl is the Speech and Hearing
  Department Head at The University of Washington.
  She has done extensive research on how young
  children acquire language. She has made many
  discoveries on how a babys brain adapts to
  acquire language skills.
• Researchers of language development and
  neuroscientist agree that the first 3 years of
  life is a sensitive period for language
  development. The infant brain is wired to seek
  out and learn language.
• Babies are born with the ability to learn any
  language. At 3 months, a baby can distinguish
  several 100 spoken sounds. (Many more than in
  any one spoken language)

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• At around 6-8 months, the babys brain engages in
  a mapping process to organize the sounds he hears
  into categories. They become language
  magnets. The language centers in their brains
  are attracted and tuned into the languages spoken
  in their environment. Even before infants can
  understand and produce words, infants perceptual
  systems are configured to acquire their native
  language. The brain starts to ignore the fine
  differences in sounds and lumps them into one
  category.
• Babies understand sound patterns of language
  around 9 months. They also start to prefer the
  language patterns of their native language to
  those of other languages.

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• Studies have shown that babies are not only
  listening for distinctions between sounds, but
  they study and differentiate what the mouth looks
  like when it is pronouncing different sounds.
• It is easier for a baby to learn and retain
  sounds at 8 months than it is at 12 months.
  Everyone is born with a complete library of the
  sounds that make up all the languages of the
  world. Before we reach our first birthday, we
  begin to prune away the neurons that process the
  sounds we dont hear.
• By 12 months, the brain is very patriotic and
  prefers to hear his native language.
• The findings of this research imply that the best
  time for learning multiple languages is at birth.
  If we snooze, we lose. The sooner we expose
  infants to different languages the better,
  preferably before 6 to 8 months old.

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• Code Switching
• Code switching is the alteration of languages
  within a single discourse, sentence or
  constituent. (Poplack 1980583)
• Code switching is common in bilingual
  individuals.
• Code switching happens in the following contexts
• 1. The listener has changed.
• 2. The setting has changed, or the other language
  is habitually associated with the new setting.
• 3. The topic has changed, or the other language
  is associated with the new topic.

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• 4. The speaker lacks a particular word or has an
  inability to find the words to express himself.
• 5. Code switching can be psychologically
  motivated to express certain emotions such as
  anger, annoyance, of authority reinforcement
• 6. Socially code switching emphasizes
  self-identity, marks group membership,
  solidarity, or social status.
• Very young children are not aware of using more
  than one language when they code switch. They
  are simply using one systemlanguage. The only
  one who experiences the phenomenon of mixing
  languages is the adult observer.

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• Maria Montessoris Observations on Brain
  Development
• Until the invention of the microscope, scientists
  believed that in the germinal cell there was a
  miniature, already formed man or woman. The
  biggest debate was whether the mans sperm or the
  womans egg determined the sex of the miniature
  human. Even after evidence was clear that life
  starts as a single cell that divides itself into
  two and then multiplies to create a being,
  scientists were reluctant to let go of their
  pre-existence theory.
• Maria Montessori was fascinated by the new
  discoveries and how organs construct themselves
  from a single cell. It begins in one cell, one
  point, around which the rate of multiplication of
  cells becomes feverish, whereas elsewhere it
  continues as before. When this feverish activity
  ceases, an organ is found to have been built.

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• The scientist who first observed the development
  of organs interpreted the feverish activity this
  way
• These are points of sensitivity around which a
  construction takes place. These organs develop
  independently of each other, as though it were
  the purpose of each to build for itself only, and
  in their intense activity the cells around each
  center become so united, so imbued with what we
  may call their ideal, that they transform
  themselves and become different that other cells,
  assuming a special form according to the organ
  that is being formed.
• Maria Montessori theorized that the brain or the
  human psyche develops in much the same way as
  organs develop in an embryo.

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• In the newborn, nothing in the psyche seems to be
  built up. He is a psychic embryo.
• 2. Just as organs are built around a point of
  sensitivity, the psyche gathers impressions from
  its environment. This is done with the absorbent
  mind. If psychic life is to incarnate the
  environment, the intelligence must first observe
  and study it, must in fact gather up a great
  number of impressions from it, just as the
  physical embryo begins by accumulating cells,
  before starting to use them to build its special
  organs. Maria Montessori

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• 3. During the first period of life, the infants
  brain is fixed for the storing of impressions as
  he absorbs everything in his environment. It is
  the period of the greatest psychic activity.
• 4. The sensory organs are the first to develop
  and the child takes everything in with his
  senses, not yet distinguishing different sounds,
  objects or smells. Then he analyses them.

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• Sensitive periods contribute to the development
  of the psychic organs. Each sensitive period has
  is own special interest. During a sensitive
  period there is an outpouring of incredible
  energy directed toward its specific area of
  concentration. Then come points of sensitivity,
  so intense as to be hardly imaginable to the
  adult mind. Maria Montessori
• Montessori thought that is was not the psyche
  that developed, but the organs that the psyche
  will need. Today we know them as neurological
  pathways.

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• Each organ develops independently of the rest.
  (Speech, the ability to judge distances, the
  ability to find orientation in a environment)
• Each develops around an interest so acute that it
  attracts the child toward a set of actions.
• 3. After the psyche organ is formed, the
  sensitivity disappears.
• We must understand the sensitive periods and when
  they occur in order to understand the psychic
  development of the child.

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• A child is born with the ability to adapt to any
  environment. His special sensitivities lead him
  to absorb everything around him. Through
  interaction and absorption of his environment,
  the land in which he is born will be the only one
  he will ever call home, the language he speaks
  perfectly will be his mother tongue, and the
  customs and habits of his country are the ones
  that will shape him as an individual.

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• Maria Montessori observed that the newborns
  brain had potential to bring about his
  development by making use of the outside world.
  She developed her theory about how it worked from
  the creation of the universe. She named this
  creative energy within the child the nebulae.
• Nebulae are gas particles in space that are
  floating around so far apart that they dont have
  any consistency. Slowly, they solidify,
  transforming themselves into stars and planets.

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• The nebular energy of language stimulates the
  child to acquire his mother tongue which is not
  inborn in him.
• The nebulae make it possible for the child to
  distinguish the sounds of spoken language from
  all the other sounds that surround him.
• Because of the nebulae, the child incarnates the
  language he hears as soundly as if it were a
  racial characteristic.
• 4. The nebulae of language respond to every
  language in which the newborn child is exposed.
  From the nebulae every language which he finds
  surrounding him at birth can be constructed, and
  each will develop itself in the same length of
  time, and following the same procedure, in all
  the children in all the countries of the world.
  

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• Maria Montessoris Observations on Language
  Acquisition
• The development of language is natural and
  spontaneous creation spawned by the unconscious
  absorbent mind and the sensitive period for
  language. The unconscious mind does not register
  the difficulties that make learning languages
  hard for adults and this eliminates the gradual
  steps that adults must take to learn a new
  language. Instead in the period of unconscious
  activity, language is stamped on the mind like
  indelible ink and becomes part of childs being.

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• Although it is called the Mother Tongue, the
  child does not develop his native language solely
  from his parents. He learns language from the
  environment he finds around him.
• Maria Montessori said that the child has a
  special kind of mind that effortlessly absorbs
  knowledge and then instructs itself. Although
  acquiring a language is a huge intellectual
  achievement, a two-year-old child speaks the
  language of his parents and no one has taught
  him.
• As the childs ears start to pick out different
  sounds of the human voice, his tongue starts to
  move with a new purpose. The tongue that he had
  previously only used for sucking seems to be
  driven by a hidden impulse to explore his throat,
  lips, and cheeks. This exploration gives the
  baby unspeakable satisfaction.

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• The sensitive period for developing language is
  in the first three years of life. Only the
  child under three can construct the mechanism of
  language. He can speak any number of languages,
  if they are in his environment at birth. He
  begins this work in the darkness of the
  subconscious mind, and here it develops and fixes
  itself permanently.

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• Maria Montessori compared how the child acquires
  language to a how a camera takes pictures.
• 1. In a fraction of seconds the film in the
  camera captures the image of ten people just as
  easily as it takes the picture of one person. No
  matter how complex the subject, the camera always
  takes the picture in the same way and in the same
  instantaneous flash.
• 2. After a camera takes a picture, the image
  remains hidden inside the camera. There is no
  evidence from the outside that anything has
  changed inside the camera.
• 3. In order to get a picture, the film must be
  taken out in a dark room. The film has to be
  washed in chemicals to fix the image away from
  the light that produced it.
• 4. Once the image is fixed and washed, it can be
  exposed to light and it is unalterable. It has
  reproduced all the details of the object that was
  photographed.

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• The absorbent mind acquires language in the same
  way.
• The mind takes in all the sounds of language it
  hears just by being in the environment.
• The images remain hidden in the darkness of the
  unconscious mind.
• They have to be fixed by mysterious sensitivities
  while nothing appears to be happening outside.
• It is not until all this happens that language
  acquisition is brought into the light of
  consciousness. There it becomes permanent.

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• Things in the childs environment seem to
  stimulate an intense interest and enthusiasm that
  penetrates into his soul. But the subconscious
  mind can also discriminate. For example, a child
  is born with a sense of hearing. With all the
  different sounds that surround him, why does the
  child only choose the human voice to imitate?
  Maria Montessori attributes it to a sensitivity
  to the human language that makes a special
  impression on the subconscious mind.
• Psychologists have said that hearing is the
  slowest sense to develop. All kinds of noises
  can be made around the child without causing any
  reaction. Montessori said this is because those
  centers in the brain are designed for language,
  and this whole mechanism responds only to the
  spoken word, so that in due time the mechanism of
  movement will be produced, to reproduce the same
  sounds it has received.

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• The Timeline of Language Development
• Language development follows definite laws, a
  specific timetable as it reaches certain
  milestones. This is true for all children no
  matter how simple or complicated the language of
  their culture.
• The sounds of the human voice are like a
  beautiful symphony to the newborn child.
• At four months, the child discovers that this
  wonderful music that touches his soul, comes from
  the human mouth and it is the lips that produce
  it. The baby starts to watch the lips with great
  intensity.

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• The childs eyes are very active he not only
  receives impressions through them, but seeks
  them, like an active researcher.

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• 4. At six months, after two months of keen
  observation, the child produces his own sounds.
  Suddenly he starts uttering syllables Da, da,
  da or Ma, ma, ma
• 5. By the end of ten months, he realizes that
  speech is more that beautiful music to be
  imitated, but that it has a purpose.
• 6. By the end of his first year, the child
  starts babbling, repeating sounds and their
  combinations. Then he utters his first words.
  It is still babbling, but with conscious meaning.

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• 7. Frustration and disappointment abounds as the
  child tries to express himself and no one
  understands him. Disappointment unconsciously
  drives him to learn. He is drawn to adults who
  are talking to each other, not to him. By
  listening to adults talk to each other, he
  absorbs language in its correct form.
• 8. At one-and-a-half, the child realizes that
  every object has a name. He has learned some
  words and can pick out concrete sounds. This is
  very important to him because now he can ask for
  what he wants. He crowds a whole phrase into one
  word.
• 9. The one and a half year old can also
  understand and follow conversations
  intelligently.

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• 10. The inner development of language is very
  vast, but the outward expression is very little.
  Progress is not steady, but comes in jerks with
  long periods where language development seems to
  be at a standstill.
• 11. A little after two years of age, there is a
  language explosion. All that has been absorbed,
  the particular sounds, the prefixes and suffixes
  of words come together. The child becomes a
  waterfall of words all pronounced perfectly.
• 12. When a child reaches two-and-a-half years old
  the language explosion is over, but continues to
  enrich his vocabulary as he masters complex
  sentences, tenses and moods of verbs.
• 13. By two and a half, the child has up to 200
  words. By the time he is five years old, if he
  is in a language rich environment, he can know
  and use thousands of words.

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Dr. Silvana Q. Montanaro
There are no learning difficulties, because
children have minds that work in a very special
way and have a switch mechanism that lets them go
from one language to another without confusion,
without needing to translate and without the
accent of the mother tongue. But this is
possible only in the first years of life in which
the child is a genius in learning
languages. If we could have two, three, four,
or five different persons speaking different
languages around the children, they could absorb
all of them with no particular effort.
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Sign Language

• Using sign language unifies multi-language
  environments
• Start using simple signs
• Use sign at childs eye level
• Use sign and word at same moment
• Never stop providing sign
• Takes a lot of practice

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Speaking to the children in the classroom

• Speak naturally Dont change tone of voice when
  addressing the child
• Visual focus is always on the child The child
  feels he is included in the conversation

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Group Time

• Sensorial experience is effective for learning
  vocabularies

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Books

• Read the same story in both languages
• Use same signs and voice tone at the same parts
• It does not matter who reads it first.
• After a while, put the book on the language shelf
  

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Music

• Singing is therapeutic for the whole body and
  helps to practice language.
• Melodic direction let the children learn all
  essence of the language at once.

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Three Period Lesson

• The three period lesson helps children master
  new words in both languages when they are curious
  about the names of everything.

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Redirection

• Use sign language
• Use facial expression
• Use simple words
• Speak to the children individually
• Repetition

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Balancing Two Languages

• Children are drawn to their native language.
• Second language is dominant.
• Dont translate.
• Speak softly or use sign.
• Second language teacher introduces most of the
  new lessons.

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Japanese Culture in the Classroom

• Group Lessons
• Children learn about the continents and to
  identify Japan.
• Through our example they learn to respect the
  globe.

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• Materials
• The trays have an Asian feel.
• Practical life containers and tools are from
  Japan.
• There are Japanese materials for each section.
• Our pets have Japanese names.

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• The Environment
• The pictures are Japanese art or landscape
  photos.
• The lamps look Japanese.
• The snack area looks like a Japanese buffet.
• We have a fountain and tatami mats instead of a
  peace table.

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Peace

• A better understanding between human beings
  based on a knowledge of more languages would
  certainly promote good relations between
  different countries and contribute much to peace
  on earth.
• Dr. Silvana Q. Montanaro