Why Preschool?
Language learning happens most easily during early childhood. The earlier children begin learning a language, the more likely they are to think naturally in that language.
Research has identified birth to age six as the “sensitive period” for language learning, where children can apparently effortlessly absorb language skills from their environment. Our Chinese immersion preschool program leverages the child’s “absorbent mind” by surrounding him with Mandarin Chinese so he can absorb his second language just as naturally as his first.
Mandarin Chinese is such a different language from English that unless a child learns it at a young age, he will need to dedicate an inordinate amount of time to master it. For instance, as we age, our brain loses the ability to hear differences in tones specific to Mandarin Chinese that denote meaning; without being able to readily hear the tones and to reproduce them correctly, we are unable to speak the language in way that’s easy for native speakers to understand.
Research has identified birth to age six as the “sensitive period” for language learning, where children can apparently effortlessly absorb language skills from their environment. Our Chinese immersion preschool program leverages the child’s “absorbent mind” by surrounding him with Mandarin Chinese so he can absorb his second language just as naturally as his first.
Mandarin Chinese is such a different language from English that unless a child learns it at a young age, he will need to dedicate an inordinate amount of time to master it. For instance, as we age, our brain loses the ability to hear differences in tones specific to Mandarin Chinese that denote meaning; without being able to readily hear the tones and to reproduce them correctly, we are unable to speak the language in way that’s easy for native speakers to understand.