10/18/00 -- Letters -- Education Week

Brain Study Suggests Early Language Boost

To the Editor:

I am writing to provide clarification to the article "Brain Power" in your recent special supplement "Middle Grades: Feeling the Squeeze" (Oct. 4, 2000).

When I read in the journal Nature the brain-research study mentioned in your article, I wrote to the lead author of the study, Paul Thompson, and posed the following question: "What are the implications of your research for teaching foreign languages?"

He replied, in a personal communication to me (Oct. 2, 2000), as follows:

"We were interested in determining which systems of the brain grow fastest at different ages. We were using MRI scans to see dramatic, localized growth in children, scanned repeatedly between ages 3-15. There was a region of extraordinary growth, between ages 7-11, in the isthmus of the corpus callosum, which we know sends fibers selectively to Wernicke's language area at the cortex. There was also prominent growth in the language cortex itself, suggesting a key maturational phase in brain regions that support the learning of new languages. Equally surprising was a dramatic shutting-off of this growth just after puberty, at ages 13-15. It was like seeing a wildfire of growth that just stops.

"As you know, this makes a lot of sense in the context of second-language acquisition, as brain researchers and educators have known for years that a 'critical period,' in which children are most efficient at learning new languages, ends around puberty. Of course, that doesn't mean to say that you can't pick up these skills later, it will just be harder to do because the brain is less 'plastic' (less able to adapt, reorganize, and make new connections) than during a period of dramatic tissue growth. The new imaging research seems to reveal a physical process in the brain that is likely to correspond to the ending, around the edge of puberty, of a period of maximum efficiency in learning new languages."

In their article, Mr. Thompson, Jay N. Giedd, and their colleagues say that their research supports the finding of two other brain researchers, who used the PET (positive emission tomography) scan and identified a similar "critical period" before puberty. The studies, thus, support the introduction of foreign language in elementary school.

The research further suggests to me (although I am not a brain researcher) that beginning a foreign language should start earlier (between the ages of 7 and 11), when the brain is more "plastic." It does not mean that foreign- language programs should be stopped at puberty, but, in my opinion, if the brain is "wired" earlier (that is, in elementary school), the continued study of foreign language might be facilitated. I found this to be true in the results of an Advanced Placement French test in 1995, conducted by the Educational Testing Service, in which students who had started the study of French in grades 1-6 outperformed those who had started in grades 7-12.

We look to the brain researchers for further research.

Gladys Lipton
Director
National FLES (Foreign Languages in Elementary School) Institute
Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics
University of Maryland,
Baltimore County Baltimore, Md.