In today's education system the question arises whether or not it is necessary to require and when the education system should start learning the second language in the school system. Some say the education system should wait until students have reached high school and others say it should start now. Other school officials said they should require it in high schools because they will remember the language better. Experts say that the education system must start when the child's brain is like a sponge. The answer to this question is simply to start learning foreign languages from childhood, which is why all state education systems should require a foreign language course during the elementary years of school. When a child begins to learn a second language, it can help them mentally. The first major benefit of this is the cognitive (thinking) development of the brain. According to the World Book Encyclopedia, young children have a greater ability to learn and speak a different “language” without thinking too much about it (Wearing 62). According to Kovacs, when children begin to learn a second language at an early age and grow up where the use of a second language is normal, their brains will have to begin deciphering which language to use at a given time (Kovacs 49). For this reason, “bilinguals may have a linguistic ability that allows them to achieve greater mental flexibility” (Weatherford 2). That's why we should start learning a second language early because according to Caccavale, president of NNELL, “it has been proven to improve cognitive development. Children who learn a foreign language from early childhood demonstrate some cognitive advantages over children... middle of paper... woe." Dictionary.com Unabridged. Random House, Inc. 05 March 2014..Lauchlan Fraser, Marinella Parisis and Robert Fadda.“Bilingualism in Sardinia and Scotland: exploring the cognitive advantages of speaking a 'minority' language.” International Journal of Bilingualism 17.1 (2013): 43-56. Academic Research Completed. Web.4 March 2014.Stewart, Janice H. “Foreign Language Study in Elementary Schools: Benefits and Implications for Achievement in Reading and Mathematics.”Early Childhood Education Journal 33.1 (2005): 11-16. EBSCO Host. March 4, 2014. Wear, John P., ed. The World Book Encyclopedia, 2013. Weatherford, Jarold H. “Advantages personals of the study of foreign languages". Eric Digest. October 1968: 1-4. Eric-Clearinghouse collection on Languages and Linguistics. Web 19 February 2014.
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