I’m very excited about a new project I am launching this fall in Beijing! I’ve spent months studying the latest research in infant language acquisition and have been especially intrigued by the most recent studies by Dr. Patricia Kuhl, co-director of University of Washington’s Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences and the work of Dr. Janet Werker at the University of British Columbia’s Infant Studies Centre. Don’t miss Dr. Kuhl’s fascinating TEDX talk on the linguistic genius of babies!
It turns out that infants are geniuses at learning languages–they are born with the ability to recognize all sounds in all human languages but this ability diminishes dramatically by the first birthday. Studies show that exposure to a second language during a key period of development (between six and ten months or so) can help infants “lock in” this natural ability, which may make it much easier for them to learn English (or any other language) as they get older.
The program I’ve developed utilizes the very same techniques used in the studies to expose infants to the sounds of English through face-to-face interaction and the liberal use of ”motherese”–the high-pitched voice used my mothers in every culture to communicate with their babies.
Fortunately, I am quite fluent in motherese. 
And I am utterly convinced that early exposure to foreign languages (thanks to the international students who lived in our home when our children were babies) is what helped my four daughters learn languages later (at 15 or so) so easily. They still view learning languages as a fun and easy task even though they are now in their twenties and officially well beyond the “golden age” for language learning which ends at around the 7th birthday.
We Americans often marvel at how Europeans can speak so many languages, but think about this: most of them heard other languages from birth! This exciting new research is helping scientists and educators alike view infancy as a period of profound potential–and one that should not be squandered.
Who knew playing with babies in a second language could be so incredibly beneficial to their little brains? Now, plenty of people know, and I’m thrilled to be given the opportunity to offer Lucky Baby English FREE to the infants in my community in Beijing.
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