Perhaps nowhere in e world is English education more than in Asia. With English skills key to academic and professional success: more and more parents have their children begin studying English instruction English at the earliest of ages. Preschools offering have become almost standard and many parents even begin this is a teaching English to their infants. For some educators, g trend. They question whether or not such early ntroduction of a foreign language will have a harmful effect on the native language Others argue that children naturally leam 10 languages better at younger ages, so parents are wise to take advantage of this opportunity Will learning a second language too early interfere with the mother instruction be most effective? tongue? When will second-language earlier always better? The answers to these questions are not as 15 straightforward as some people believe. neuroscience Dr. Laura-Ann Petitto. director of the cognitive laboratory for language and child development at Dartmouth College, claims it is never too soon for a child to learn a second language Petitto observed 15 children growing up bilingual in a differences 20 variety of languages, and found there were no substantial users. between the languages they learned and monolingual "The earlier a child was exposed to a second language, the better the child did," says Petitto. This flies in the face of educational policy that suggests exposing a child to only one language at first. A 25 child is not confused by a second language or delayed in learning the language." Petitto found that children who first learned community one language, and then began to leam a second, were never quite as simultaneously. good as those who learned both languages Petitto's findings are consistent with most recent research in the field of bilingualism. There is a good deal of support for the "critical period": the theory that a child's brain is best suited to learn a language effortlessly and perfectly during the early years. The brain loses this capacity around the onset of puberty (roughly 10-14 years old). Some researchers even claim that as early as the age of five 35 some ability to absorb a new language begins to diminish.