Bilingualism
We know for sure today that exposing children to a second language from an early age is a positive development factor.
Paradoxically, However, there are very few nursery structures offering a bilingual environment.
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How does it work at ?
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We must admit we have always been really impressed by young children from bilingual families, showing capacities to learn several languages at home.
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In order to understand these mechanisms, we met scientists in neurosciences from CNRS where we benefited from enriching talks and presentations dealing with the advances of research-works and numerous experiments carried out in the past 30 years. These meetings got us utterly convinced that exposing a child to a second language from an early age, is beneficial to her / his development and the earlier the exposure, the better.
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Consequently, our idea lies in setting up bilingual immersion conditions as similar to home as possible. So as to implement these conditions in our crèches, we have come up with two major guide-lines.
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For each Plume crèche, we recruit an English-speaking professional in addition to our French-speaking staff: (s) he is specifically in charge of interacting in English with your children and giving them the opportunity to get exposed to both French and English permanently all day long.
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We have developed a customized program and specific interacting materials for beneficial communicative language activities for each age-group to give your child the best possible opportunities to unfold her / his skills in two languages.
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Frequently Asked Questions
We have tried to answer the main questions parents have on the subject.
If you have any further questions, please call or email us, we will get back to you quickly.
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More information ?
If you are interested in the subject, you will find information below and in the link mentioned at the bottom of the page
more detailed information on the research carried out in the field of bilingualism.
Bilingualism, what are we talking about?
Childish bilingualism is not the addition of the two languages in the child's brain. Rather, it is about building a two-pronged linguistic capacity. Indeed, the structures of the brain of the young child are so flexible that they can learn two or three languages as easily as only one, and this until the age of 7 years.
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On condition that languages are learned at the "language age", that is to say At a time when brain plasticity is on the rise, it is just as natural to learn one or two languages.
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After the critical age of seven, the acquisition of a new language is another process and must make the detour through the mother tongue. You could say that after seven years, you no longer learn language but languages.
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Short, if we are lucky enough to fall like Obelix, as a baby, into a magic potion made up of two or more languages, that is to say to be immersed in bilingualism from the very beginning, we become bilingual.
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It is the presence or absence of a language in the environment that stimulates the acquisition or on the contrary causes the loss of a language. From a neurological point of view, certain connections between neurons are requested when "flexibility" (in scientific language, cortical malleability) of the brain in full swing, connections which, in monolingual children, have been sclerotic at the language age with the result, the final closure of this cognitive window.
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These "cabling", installed during the construction of the language, have repercussions on the child's entire future in several respects, particularly with regard to his schooling.
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The most exhaustive research in this area comes from immersion programs in Canada, carried out for twenty years between the sixties and the eighties, with the aim of making language teaching truly effective in an officially bilingual country.
During this period, French in Canada was threatened by English-speaking Canada. This is why attempts have been made to offer a school curriculum in French for English-speaking children, and, conversely, a curriculum in English for French-speaking children. Thus, comparisons could be made on samples of monolingual children from the same establishments by tests verbal and non-verbal.
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It should be noted that these programs concerned children who did not use the second language (English or French) outside of the school context.
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The results are surprisingly unanimous. There are excellent results in terms of second language learning abilities in children exposed to these tests.
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Even more surprisingly, there was also greater mental flexibility, conceptual mobility and problem-solving ability than in monolingual children . The consequences Particularly impressive were shown in the field of mathematics, where children from bilingual education systematically scored higher than their monolingual peers.
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According to the researchers, this phenomenon is explained by the intellectual stimulation provided by bilingualism . More precisely, the phonological and grammatical capacities and the calculation capacity are governed by the same frontal brain area (which is called Broca's area). Thus, the stimulation of this area by early bilingualism leads to the creation of numerous neuronal connections, which would have direct repercussions on the potentialities in mathematics.
How it works ?
C’est la présence ou l’absence d’une langue dans l’entourage qui stimule l’acquisition ou au contraire provoque la perte d’une langue. Du point de vue neurologique, certaines connexions entre les neurones sont sollicitées au moment où la "flexbilité" (dans un language scientifique, la malléabilité corticale) du cerveau bat son plein, des connexions qui, chez des enfants monolingues, ont éte sclérosées à l’âge du langage avec pour résultat, la fermeture définitive de cette fenêtre cognitive.
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Ces « câblages », installés au moment de la construction du langage, ont des répercussions sur tout l’avenir de l’enfant et ce à plusieurs égards, notamment en ce qui concerne sa scolarité.
And how do we know that?
Les recherches les plus exhaustives dans ce domaine viennent des programmes d’immersion au Canada, effectuées pendant vingt ans entre les années soixante et quatre vingt, dans le but de donner à l’enseignement des langues une véritable efficacité dans un pays officiellement bilingue.
Pendant cette période, le français au Canada était menacé par le Canada anglophone. C’est pourquoi des tentatives ont été faites, d’offrir un cursus scolaire en français aux enfants anglophones, et, inversément, un cursus en anglais pour les enfants francophones. Ainsi, des comparaisons ont pu être effectuées sur des échantillons d'enfants monolingues des mêmes établissements par des tests verbaux et non verbaux.
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Il est à noter qu’il s’agissait dans ces programmes des enfants qui n’utilisaient pas la langue seconde (anglais ou français) en dehors du contexte scolaire.
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Les résultats sont étonnamment unanimes. On constate d'excellents résultats en termes de capacités d'apprentissage de la deuxième langue chez les enfants exposés à ces tests.
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Conclusion plus étonnante encore, on a pu constater également une souplesse mentale, une mobilité conceptuelle et une capacité à résoudre des problèmes plus importantes que chez les enfants monolingues. Les retombées particulièrement impressionnantes se sont manifestées dans le domaine de mathématiques, où les enfants issus de l’enseignement bilingue avaient systématiquement des scores supérieurs à leurs camarades monolingues.
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Selon les chercheurs, ce phénomène s’explique par la stimulation intellectuelle apportée par le bilinguisme. Plus précisément, les capacités phonologiques et grammaticales et la capacité de calcul sont régies par la même aire cérébrale frontale (qu'on appelle l’aire de Broca). Ainsi, la stimulation de cette aire par le bilinguisme précoce aboutit à la création de nombreuses connexions neuronales, ce qui auraient des répercussions directes sur les potentialités en mathématiques.
All the elements mentioned above are taken from the publication of Maria Kilhstedt, Senior Lecturer in psycholinguistics at the University of Paris X Nanterre.
The full article can be found here: skoldiwangwengamp.com/testennou/avantages_bilinguisme.pdf
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