Discussion on summary and further disc English acquisition

[Brian McMahon]

Thanks to everyone who replied to my summary posting last week (Feb 21).
My original posting was on Feb 6. I will present a new summary when the
rate of responses slows down.
1. I mentioned that the decision of the parents to postpone the
introduction of English to their 3 1/2 year old son was due to the advice
of experts. All respondents were against that decision. This week, the
parents gave me one of the factors they considered:
"What to Expect the First Year" by Arlene Eisenberg, Heidi Murkoff and
Sandee Hathaway, Workman Publishing, 708 Broadway, New York (1989) is one
of the most popular books for new parents in the US. On pp. 161-162 they
discuss the issue. They say that the ability to use a second language "is
an invaluable skill" that may help a child to "think in different ways"
and connect the child with ancestral or parental "roots" in certain
cases, they also state the following:
"There is less agreement on just when to introduce the second language,
however. Some experts suggest beginning as soon as a baby is born, but
others believe that this puts the child at a disadvantage in both
languages-though probably for only a while. They generally recommend
waiting until a child is two and a half or three before putting on the
Berlitz. By this time she usually has a pretty good grasp of English but
is still able to pick up a new language easily and naturally. It is
generally agreed that waiting to introduce the second language until
after a child can read will impede her fluency in it."
The rest of the section tells how to introduce the second language and is
consistent with the responses to my postings.
This would appear to be an excellent example of how such misconceptions
occur. Given the popularity of the book, I believe that it would be
advisable for several first language acquisition experts to get in touch
with the authors and the publishers to encourage them to consider what
appears, given the resposes, to be the mainstream opinion of linguists.
2. Very disappointingly, there has been no discussion of the language
acquisition section of the Newsweek (Feb 19) article, "Your Child's
Brain." One respondent said "it is certainly worth more discussion." Does
anybody want to pick up the ball on this one?
3. There has only been one response to the issue of the advisability of
sending the 3 1/2 year old to a bilingual nursery school for a four-hour
daily session including 90 minutes with a teacher who is a native
speaker. Any other takers?
Brian McMahon
bmcmah at meyosp.mecon.ar