Over the years that LCF Fun Languages has been operating, we have occasionally been delighted to welcome children with autism, Asperger’s Syndrome or other learning disabilities into our language clubs.

By enrolling their child in a second language program, the parents of children with language impairments already understand that, if a child is able to learn a first language, there is no reason why they cannot learn a second. They simply desire to enhance and maximize their child’s communicative potential, often in the face of opposition from their speech pathologist or even their school.

We recently received this testimonial from one of our French parents and her experience with her own child with a speech delay:

“Our little girl was diagnosed with global developmental delay at 4 years of age. As a result, our speech therapist was concerned that she would not cope learning two languages (English/French). We knew that our daughter needed to be exposed to both languages from early childhood to better her chances to speak grammatically correctly as an adult. We met other bilingual families with children who had also learning or cognitive disabilities. Their experience, like ours dispels the myth that these children cannot learn a foreign language. Our children have a learning disability but are becoming nevertheless successful language learners.” Stephanie, mother of a 4 year old

In supporting parents with learning impairments, we also understand that the experiences of these children (and their parents) will, of course, vary considerably. However, the bottom line is that children will not experience any extra delay or difficulties than monolingual children with similar language difficulties.

Often, learning a new language will give children with a learning disability a self-confidence boost, especially if they lack other skills, often taken for granted among their peers, like riding a bicycle.

Plans to overhaul the way languages are taught in NSW schools will see all primary school students being exposed to at least one language before they start high school, according to a recent article in the Sydney Morning Herald.

Despite more than 30 languages on offer in the state’s schools, less than 10 percent of students enrolled in the HSC studied one last year. Under the proposed plan, primary school teachers who are bilingual will be retrained as language teachers and schools will be encouranged to collaborate with community language providers to not only increase this number but to also meet the needs of the more than a quarter million students who speak a second language at home.

And the fact that the federal government wants 40% of year 12 students to be studying a language within the next 10 years, means that New South Wales is not alone in wanting to dramatically boost the interest in languages.

For most young children, going to school is something to look forward to: learning, a little bit of fun and, of course, new friends. But for some children it can be an altogether different experience, especially for those who may find it difficult to form new friendships.

For these children, school can feel like much more of a chore than it should and with their ever increasing workloads, teachers are often at a loss as to how to help children in this situation.

One of the key benefits of our LCF Fun Languages after school clubs is the opportunity for children to create and nurture lasting social bonds in an engaging and stress free environment.

And because most friendships are forged in the fires of a common interest, the children who attend our Fun Languages clubs find they can easily connect with each other through their desire to learn more about other countries, cultures and languages.

Our ability to form a limitless number of thoughts into a spoken word is what distinguishes the human species from our less evolved cousins but, while we know that language first appeared among Homo sapiens around 30 000 to 100 000 years ago, we still don’t know all the secrets of exactly HOW language evolved, or how the thousands of languages we have today have developed.

When you hear somebody speaking Polish and another person speaking Persian, they sound like totally different languages, don’t they? But listen more closely and you’ll hear similarities, like how one of the Persian words for mother is mada, and in Polish, it’s matka.

That’s because both languages belong to a large family known as the Indo-European languages. A group that contains over 400 languages and dialects: Polish, Persian, English, French, German, Russian, Icelandic. The list goes on.

But if you trace all those languages to their roots, exactly where and when did they come from? It’s a 200-year-old question and a topic of controversy.

According to linguists (those who undertake the scientific study of human language) there is an important distinction between language acquisition and language learning.

So what is the difference?

The distinction is made based on an individual’s internal cognitive process and the degree of conscious thought brought to the learning task.

Children acquire language through a subconscious process during which they are unaware of grammatical rules. This is similar to the way they acquire their first language. The emphasis is on the text of the communication and not on the form.

In a second-language acquisition situation, the language is spoken in the immediate environment of the learner, who has good opportunities to use the language by participating in natural communication situations.

Language learning, on the other hand, is not communicative. It is the result of direct instruction in the rules of language and is not an age-appropriate activity for young learners. In foreign language learning, the language is not spoken in the learner’s immediate environments and the student has little or no opportunity to use the language in natural communication.