Myths and misunderstandings about dual languages acquisition in young learners

In his lecture, Fred Genesse explains myths and misunderstandings that are usually take for granted when we talk about learning two or more languages at the same time as a young learner.

Genesse starts telling us the motivations behind this research. The first and foremost are the countless emails that he is used to receive from parents questioning the capacity of the children to learn two or more languages at the same time (e.g.: if it is going to overload the child’s brain or delay the vocabulary development.), and/or asking the best way to improve this learning.

The lack of researches considering bilingual backgrounds is a problem too. Fred Genesse shows the importance of considering both – monolingual and bilingual – datas, given that dual languages learners are a large population and they can have different characteristics.

The first myth is “the monolingual brain”. Some people believe that children are born with a unique capacity of learning only one language at a time and if they get in touch with more languages, they will probably have delays and deficits. However, Genesse points out that monolinguals and bilinguals have almost the same milestones during acquisition process and if this process happens in a good learning environment, the number of languages is definitely not an issue.

The second myth is “more exposure is better”. Fred Genesse reveals that usually time does not matter. We are used to think that more exposure to the language means better competences, but If we expose them time enough to practice and learn the language, what Genesse consider is 40%, they will not get “confused” and will be able to prove as much knowledge as someone who was 100% of the time exposure to a specific language.

Unfortunately, he did not have enough time to clarify the third and fourth myth, so he decided to skip the third, which is “children are linguistic sponges”, and go straight to the fourth misunderstanding that he considered more relevant.

The myth about “children with learning challenges” is quickly cleared up. Fred Genesse tells that a monolingual child who has learning challenges would have the same questions if she was a bilingual child. Thus, we should not stop the children from learning more languages only because they have learning difficulties.