The governments of many countries have recently introduced modern language studies in primary schools, acknowledging the need for exposure to foreign languages from a young age.

Past experience and research have demonstrated that the earlier in
life you start a foreign language, the greater your chances of fluency. The following points are some of the reasons why we think foreign languages should be introduced early in the primary curriculum,
or even before at nursery level:

· Children of bilingual families cope effortlessly and effectively with
the process of learning two languages at the same time. Research has shown that the acquisition of two languages is not fundamentally different from the acquisition of just one: the same learning strategies are at work.

· Psychologically and emotionally, very young children deal better with
a foreign language than older ones (and far better than most adults!). This is due to a variety of factors:

1- Young children's social identity has not yet been established, therefore they don't feel threatened when confronted by a new
language and/or culture. The foreign language is not so "foreign" but merely "different".

2- Children progressively build up their personality through
interaction with the outside world. They are extremely open-minded and curious about everything: they welcome novelty and change.

3- Young children show great spontaneity and open-mindedness
which allows them to be less fearful and inhibited than older children (8+) and adults.

· The brain is in constant evolution throughout our lives, but it is in
early childhood that its plasticity is at its greatest: cerebral
lateralisation and the synapses system (nervous connections) are progressively put into place, allowing the brain multiple possibilities
of functioning. Language in particular appears between one and three years of age (where the urge to communicate is immense) and usually becomes stable after the age of eight. Consequently, before the age of seven:

1- Children's imitating and memorising capacities are at their greatest.

2- They are able to hear and reproduce sounds that do not exist in
their own language, making their pronunciation almost perfect.

3- Young children feel a great urge for speaking, communicating and experiencing with language.