Let not the child learn too many languages at the start.

Yesterday, while I was at my Friday Kriya, a breathing technique, practice, a friend and parent of three children told me her experience when it comes to language learning for children.

She went through the national language medium school which uses the Malay Language. So, she was good at the Malay Language. So, when her first child came, she spoke to him in the Malay Language; while the husband, who was from the Chinese medium school, spoke to the child in Mandarin and the grandpa who went through the English Language medium school spoke in English while the grandma spoke in Hockien which is a Chinese dialect.

The child seemed to understand what they said. However, he could never reply to any of their questions. From his actions in response to their words, he obviously could hear and understand them. The parents became worried. Was he mute?

Consulting a friend who was also a doctor, they were directed to a pediatrician in a hospital in Penang. As a result, it was discovered that the parents and relatives were using too many languages all at once on the child. The child should be allowed to concentrate on one or at the most two languages only at that early stage. That, of course, solved the problem.

Well, it looks like language learning, just like every other thing in our world, should neither be too little or too much. Be moderate. Later, after the child has been able to handle one language fairly well, we can include another language. It ought not to be taught all together at the same time, especially when they are for the first time introduced to languages.

Of course, there are exceptions. Such exceptions cannot be many. You see, I know this parent and her children. All of them are obviously quite intelligent. If intelligent children such as them cannot cope with four or five languages or dialects simultanuously at this first stage of their lives, it has given us the clue that when it comes to languages, too many is too much for beginners to handle and can bring undesirable effects. So, we ought to learn from this experience and benefit from it.