Day 388: Little Sponges

Children are amazing!

Their brains are totally like little sponges - they just soak up everything around them! I've been teaching my kids for less than a week now but it's unbelievable how much they've absorbed already. Their vocabulary is increasing by the day. I can literally see a difference in their understanding from one day to the next. They're picking up the key phrases, are slowly falling into our daily routine, and are becoming more confident and 'experimental' with their English skills. It really does blow me away.

Overall today was a pretty good day. I've got a fairly well-behaved bunch at the moment, and I really appreciate that. Korean is still running rampant in the classroom though, and I don't know how to put a stop to that. Trying to get the kids to not speak Korean is like standing on a beach when the tide's coming in and I'm trying to stop the water with just a pail and shovel. Not very effective! Our bosses keep telling us to be strict them, and don't worry too much cause it takes time. They're all improving though, some at faster paces than others.

Studies have shown that children between the ages of 1 and 4 have the most 'flexible' brain capacity for learning a new language. Every single baby born in the world can produce any sound produced in any language, but as soon as they start speaking they begin losing the physical ability to reproduce sounds not heard in their surroundings. The larynx immediately becomes 'imprinted' with the ability to make particular sounds, and the sooner you expose a child to foreign sounds, the easier they'll have with learning and pronunciation of foreign languages later on in life. It's fascinating! It sure makes me wish that I could pick up a language that quickly.