Catherine McCrary: Teaching a Second Language to the Young

Voicing the opposite of my opinion this week is Catherine McCrary, one of my fellow journalism and mass communication majors.

I first discovered Catherine's opinion on this week's topic (English only vs. Bilingualism) when she and I were preparing for a radio interview for a class project. I had actually wanted to try this topic several weeks ago (before I knew Catherine's stance on the issue), so naturally, I was really excited when she brought the topic up. This nice little coincidence meant that I didn't have to go around asking people if they had the opinion "op-me" about adding a "second" language here in the U.S.

I put second in quotations, because as I talked about in my last post, the U.S. doesn't even have an official "first" language, even though most people speak English.

Anyway, so during my interview with Catherine, she really emphasized that it's important for children to learn other languages from a young age. Why? "Because children have an amazing aptitude for learning language at a young age," she said. And right now in America, the logical choice of a second language for children to learn would be Spanish (in case you haven't noticed). When I asked her whether children in America should be required to study Spanish all through school, she quickly and adamantly replied, "Absolutely!"

She stated that children in other parts of the world are required to learn English in school, not just because English is a global commerce language, but also because immersing a child in another language at an early age has been proven to increase IQ or standardized test scores. Catherine gave an example from Canada, where children were immersed in French for the first 3 years of school. When they entered the 4th grade, the Canadian children were finally taught in English, and by that time they were fluent in both languages, had an appreciation for French-Canadian culture, and had higher IQs.

This fascinating article expounds on the example that Catherine gave.

So how does language make a person "smarter" per se?