Prefrontal Cortexes

One of the benefits of teaching children a second language is that their development and academic results will most likely flourish. Children are able to think more flexibly and more creatively because of their underdeveloped prefrontal cortex, the part in the brain where working memory is stored. According to Abdul Malik Muftau, “Due to the development of the prefrontal cortex, adults experience functional fixedness and that makes adults see everything exactly as it is.” (edlab). Children’s prefrontal cortexes allow them think creativity and learn new skills as long as they are surrounded by whatever said thing they want to learn. Because of this, when children are learning a new language, not only are they constantly exposed to it but develop

new understandings about the vocabulary and structure of their first language. A great example of the positive outcomes of teaching children foreign languages are immersion schools. These school stress the importance of learning a foreign language to the students and possibly 50% of the whole school day is instructed in a certain foreign language, so that the children are constantly surrounded by the language in order to soak in more information.

An immersion school in Charlotte, North Carolina surrounds their students with French, German, and Japanese and do not teach English vocabulary, spelling or grammar until the third grade. It showed that “In 2001, 94% of the third graders and 100% of the fifth graders in that immersion school scored at or above grade level in reading in English. (Stewart)”, their percentages actually proving to be greater than the elementary schools that do not focus on foreign languages. Besides English, students who study foreign languages have been proven to excel more at other fields of education such as math, science, and social studies. Canadian researchers Turnbull, Lapkin, and Hart made a study of studying over 5,000 children’s tests scores who were in an immersion program throughout the province of Ontario, Canada. Concluding that the “test scores of immersion students were comparable to scores of students in the regular program. However, by Grade 6, test scores of immersion students in mathematics and writing surpassed those of students in the regular

program. (Stewart)”, not only proving that elementary students exposed to foreign languages can excel at other subjects, but also proving the greater chances of obtaining higher academic test scores. Most parents and educators want nothing but improvement and success for their students’ learning progression, children have the potential to excel in different subjects in school, obtain higher academic testing scores, and allow their brains to develop further to promote their growth and show positive results academically. That is why educators and adults should consider teaching foreign languages in elementary school.