Barbara Zona, our teacher in the greater Toledo, Ohio area, sent us a
link to this *fantastic* TED video. If you aren’t familiar with the
TED series, they are a series of lectures which are always interesting
and thought provoking.
This one is by Patricia Kuhl and is called “The linguistic genius of
babies”. Why is it so fantastic? Because it validates everything we
say and do at Music Lingua. Namely:
1) Children learn language best at an early age, and this ability
drops off rapidly after age 7
2) The very best time to expose children to the sounds of a second
language is in infancy, around ages 8 to 10 months
3) “Motherese” language is critical to the process
4) The baby can not learn from hearing the language on TV or the
stereo; they must hear and see a person actually speaking it to them.
What a sales pitch this video is for our program!!! Here’s the video
– let me know what you think: