The process of learning, knowing and using a second language has a profound effect on the brain. Specifically, they experience greater development in these key areas for organizing and processing speech: Auditory Cortex - receives auditory stimuli and sends it to the Wernicke 's area Wernicke 's Area - processes language
More than half of the world‘s population is bilingual and many researchers are captivated to explore how language and thinking collaborate, that is, what cognitive abilities are affected by bilingualism and to what extent other factors like language proficiency and age of acquisition are predominant. In the early years of a child’s life the development of both speaking and reasoning occurs at an astonishing pace therefore such research has comprehensive implications on child development and education, and offers theoretical and practical benefits to human cognition. Just several decades ago it was widely considered that young chilren should not be exposed to two (or more) languages as this may lead to confusion and slower cognitive development.
(At Home With Montessori, n.d.) In each sensorial activity, the child is taught the appropriate language and in turn paving the way for a widened vocabulary and leading the child towards aspects of literacy. (Samui Montessori, n.d.) The foundation of the intellectual development of the child is laid throughout the sensorial exercises as it assists the child to continuously organize, make comparisons and judge the activity at hand (Montessori Mom, n.d.). The child is able to make a mental link between an abstract indication and its physical demonstration by his hand and mind acting together. (Montessori Mom, n.d.) The child is also taught logical reasoning as he is required to work in a systematic manner whereby following sequential steps in a specific order to complete the activity. In this way it enables the child to refine and expand his senses by differentiation, making observations and interpretations, life-long tendencies of precision and accuracy, being able to concentrate for a longer amount of time, understands feelings, tastes and noises as well as has a sense of order and to arrive at conclusions for himself.
It has been found that girls know more words and have a larger vocabulary than boys particularly in the first five years of life. From a biological standpoint, the area of language development in the brain works at a faster rate in girls, and from a social standpoint there is less interaction with boys than girls in the home and at school. Children with disorders related to language learn new words at slower rate than those with no such issues. The exposure a child has to language in their environment affects their semantic development based on the premise that children from higher income families have more conversations and parent-child interactions resulting in an expanded vocabulary than children from lower income families. 2.
34 By broadening one’s view of intelligence, as well as valuing and nurturing abilities other than mathematics and reading, doors can be opened by using the strength of children as a means of complementing their less developed area. Furthermore, by applying the theory of Multiple Intelligences, towards students, leads to a better understanding of them, of their needs and of their perception of the world.
However, the current research through the cognitive and the neurological sciences no longer doubts the method and does provide great support for the multisensory approaches. Neuroscience shows that children with poor phonological processing demonstrate reduced cerebral blood flow in the left frontal and temporal cortices and activation of language areas typically occupied in reading. This shows the need for the creation of substitute routes for word recognition with sensorimotor pathways (Dyslexia-breaking the barriers to learning, online). According several researches the Wernicke’s and Broca’ s areas function separately. A multisensory way is necessary to motivate these areas to work concurrently (A framework for understanding dyslexia, 2004).
In this part, the researcher gives a review of selected studies which were carried out in Arab and foreign countries and which are related to the multi sensory approach. Kinney (2013) determined if a multi sensory approach to reading instruction would be effective, as well as engaging, for students in educational first grade classroom. The first level involved classroom study incorporating multimodal approach to guided reading and group instruction and the second phase measured engagement of iPad usage during multi sensory word study instruction. Multimodal approaches can be used for meaningful engagement for literacy instruction for all students. Literacy support activities were linked to Howard Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences.
Moreover, the most important features taken into consideration is talking and interacting with other society. Exploring this specific field of nurture, it made me aware within my enculturation process the following; language. The area of language is broad, not only in the spoken language but also through gesture, body, sign, written, art and many more. Within this variety of languages, acquiring an unfamiliar one takes time and ones will to learn. It is evident, having observed through my own experience, the younger people acquire linguistic ability faster than when trying to learn in adulthood.
Bialystok and Viswanathan (2009) examined 8 years old bilingual children in India, comparing them with different groups: Canadian bilinguals (English and another language), Canadian English monolinguals and English-Indian bilinguals. Results showed that both bilingual groups performed better in terms of inhibition and flexibility than monolinguals, thus it could be concluded that the occurrence of cognitive benefits is unrelated to culture. Similarly, Yang, Yang and Lust (2011) compared 4 years old English-Korean bilingual children with Korean and English monolinguals in America and Korean monolinguals in Korea and they also discovered the cognitive advantages of bilingual children. This means that typological distance, cultural background and language of instruction did not influence EF performance (Barac, Bialystok, Castro & Sanchez, 2014). Adi-Japha, Berberich-Artzi and Libnawi (2010) compared monolingual and bilingual children in a nursery school, asking them to draw, for example, a flower that did not exist in reality.
Judith Strozer and others supported this view and came to the conclusion that they differ from young children in brain plasticity leading to their difficulties in second language acquisition. Catherine Snow and M Hoefnagel-Hohle and others opposed this view point of the role of biological clock in second language learning. They opined that if the process of teaching/learning of a second language is well structured to suit such adolescents and young adults they will learning in an accelerated pace in most of the areas of language acquisition except pronunciation which is caused by the influence of first language. This may be possible for the adolescents and young adults due to their better developed abilities for abstract logical reasoning which is termed as formal operations by Piaget. This enables them to achieve analytical understanding of the intricacies of new language learning in relatively concrete terms.Adolescents can add a child-like willingness to experiment and play with language to this capacity for meta-linguistic awareness, and so they become the speediest second language