How children learn a second language.
Children essentially learn a second language much like they learn their first language and will tend to pick it up relatively quickly. Children that are raised bilingually tend to follow a similar path. A bilingual child will go through three distinct stages.
Stage 1A child's lexicon consists of words from both languages and the words are not usually translations of each other.
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Stage 2As the child moves into two-word utterances, words from both languages may be used in the same utterance, but the rate of mixing languages decreases rapidly during the child's third year of life.
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Stage 3As the child's lexicon grows, one way it is filled out is by acquiring words in each language for the same concept, but the development of separate morphological, syntactic and discourse subsystems takes a little longer. By this stage, usually in the fourth year of a child's life, they become aware that they speak more than one language.
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Children learn second languages in two different ways There's 'simultaneous bilingualism' and 'consecutive bilingualism'.
Simultaneous bilingualism
In simultaneous bilingualism, children are normally exposed to both languages in their home environment (e.g A father that speaks English and a mother who speaks French). From the beginning of this child's life, they are exposed to two different languages and learn them simultaneously.
Consecutive bilingualism
In consecutive bilingualism, children are normally exposed to one language (usually one other than English) in their home environment and learn the second one at kindergarten and school (English). A child that learns consecutive bilingualism is generally much more advanced in their home language, but quickly catch up and become 'even' when speaking both languages.
Pros & Cons for learning a second language as a child.
Pros:
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Cons:
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