Having the ability to communicate to a range of people plays an important role in our culture and development. Being able to provide your child with a competitive advantage from such an early age is incredibly rewarding and can have massive benefits if they learn from such an early age.

At ELF, we understand how important it is for you to be able to give your child the best opportunities. Therefore, we have created a list of the benefits of teaching your child a second language from an early age:

1)      Career opportunities

1)      Native accent

Nowadays when learning a second language, it can be very difficult to pick up the accent along with it. Allowing your child to be exposed to a second language allows them to be more confident and speak a lot more naturally. This is because children are very good at picking up different tones, allowing them to copy accents better. As your child gets older, their ability to pick up new sounds and replicate them becomes more difficult.

2)      Social opportunities

Learning a second language allows your child to have a better understanding of different cultures and therefore the ability to form a better relationship with people worldwide. Understanding and appreciating different cultures from such a young age enables them to prepare for making decisions in their professional life which may impact different cultures.

It also allows for a safer environment if they decide to travel as they can communicate with locals, develop friendships and have an awareness of different aspects such as safety.

3)      Higher academic achievement

Harvard University states that learning more than one language allows for a child to memorise information a lot more thoroughly. This is an advantage in learning, especially through key periods such as GCSE’S where all knowledge must be retained. Genuinely learning at an early age allows for a better ability to complete tasks, especially by multitasking. It has also been known that children learning a second language early on go on to achieve higher grades in math and standard tests such as SAT’s.

4)      Improvement upon your first language

Studying a second language in great depth, allows your child to focus on different aspects of their mother tongue, such as the grammar, sentence structure and spelling. Analysing this improves their ability to communicate with others as they are looking at their language from a different view, something which we don’t think of normally. Concentrating on studying sounds to replace it with a meaning allows for in-depth concentration. This skill is developed through learning and especially with a language, allows for listening skills to improve, allowing for better communication.

2)      Allow for a range of tasks to develop different areas. A conversation in a second language will allow for development in pronunciation and structure whereas writing it down will improve spelling.

3)      Repetition. This is a great way of ensuring knowledge is stored. Although your child may start to lose attention, it can be achieved in short sharp bursts by changing the format in which the activity is repeated.

We are experts in early years’ education resources including classroom furniture, school dining furniture and school play equipment. For more information about our products, please contact us or call us on 01733 511121.