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Spontaneous gesture can help children learn, whether they use a spoken language or sign language, according to a new report by Susan Goldin-Meadow, psychology professor at the University of Chicago. "Children who can hear use gesture along with speech to communicate as they acquire spoken language," a researcher said. "Those gesture-plus-word combinations precede and predict the acquisition of word combinations that convey the same notions. Gesture plays a role in learning for signers even though it is in the same modality as sign. As a result, gesture cannot aid learners simply by providing a second modality. Rather, gesture adds imagery to the categorical distinctions that form the core of both spoken and sign languages. Goldin-Meadow concludes that gesture can be the basis for a self-made language, assuming linguistic forms and functions when other vehicles are not available. But when a conventional spoken or sign language is present, gesture works along with language, helping to promote learning.

Quick comparison of the differences between child and adult second language learning: suggests that children will be able to attain greater fluency in L2, whereas adults will learn the L2 imperfectly.

Parents often wonder how they can help their child learn English as a second language, but they often already have all the tools they need - the types of parent-child interactions that help children learn their first language can help them learn their second language as well.

Due to the increase in language-learning technology, learners of second languages can get exposure to the new language that weren't possible before, making it easier to learn a new language.

This article challenges the idea that it is impossible to learn a second language past a certain age. It gives you steps on how to learn a new language in only 15 minutes a day, some steps are: knowing your learning style, and embracing yourself in the culture of the language that you're learning.

This article states that even brief, early exposure to a language influences how the brain processes sounds from a second language later in life- even when the first language learned is no longer spoken

Can learning another language help with studying linguistics? While languages and linguistics aren't exactly the same thing, they are more related than, say, learning how to ride a bicycle and linguistics, so learning you get from one source won't be wasted when it comes to the other.

The amount of Americans learning a language other than English has decreased by 100,000 between 2009-2013. Many believe that taking a course in Economics is more beneficial than learning a second language; but what language will dominate the future? English only ranks third in for amount of people with it as a native language. Here are a few ways to think about what language will dominate in the near future.

Learning English as a second language is far from uncommon around the world. Looking more specifically, what is it like learning English as a Chinese first language individual. This paper covers three main topics: 1. The differences between the Chinese and English languages 2. The differences between Chinese and American culture 3. The differences between Chinese and American educational practices When teaching English as a second language, it is important to know the what fits the students particular needs in learning and how your teaching will be most effective. This paper allows teachers to understand more about their Chinese students and their general linguistic and cultural background.

This article explains the "foreign language effect". It says that speaking a second language improves rational decision making and open-mindedness. It also discusses impacts of speaking a second language on our memory and elements of our personality.

According to science and psychology, the easiest time to learn a second language is during childhood. This is because the brain at that age is a sponge for absorbing new information. Also children are more eager to learn than adults and they have more time for it. In general, all learning becomes harder with age.

This article explains key principles and strategies for how to learn languages. It talks about the important elements: comprehensible input (understanding), comprehensible output (producing), and review/feedback (identifying and correcting errors). It mentions the need for balance and avoiding putting too much effort on one skill. It also talks about the importance of embracing mistakes, being comfortable with not knowing certain things, and creating low-stakes practices to become more comfortable with errors. It talks about motivation in learning and the drive for people's desire to learn the language. It includes a lot of psychology in it too.

"Based on the size of Heschl's Gyrus (HG), a brain structure that typically accounts for no more than 0.2 percent of entire brain volume, the researchers found they could predict -- even before exposing study participants to an invented language -- which participants would be more successful in learning 18 words in the "pseudo" language."

Cartoonist LA Johnson employs a graphic novel-style approach to a story about a dual-language school: Bruce-Monroe Elementary School in Washington, D.C. In a dual-language classroom, sometimes you're the student and sometimes you're the teacher. Here's what it's like for 6-year-old Merari, an L1=Spanish ELL (English Language Learner).

Some adults learn a second language better than others, and their secret may involve the rhythms of activity in their brains. New findings by scientists at the University of Washington demonstrate that a five-minute measurement of resting-state brain activity predicted how quickly adults learned a second language.

Ironically, native L1= English speakers are worse at delivering their message than people who speak English as a second or third language. Non-native speakers, it turns out, speak more purposefully and carefully, typical of someone speaking a second or third language. L2=English speakers generally use more limited vocabulary and simpler expressions, without flowery language or slang. Consequently, their language tends to be shorter, clearer, and more direct. Anglophones, on the other hand, often talk too fast for others to follow, and use jokes, slang, references, and baffling abbreviations specific to their own culture. "The native English speaker… is the only one who might not feel the need to accommodate or adapt to the others." When trying to communicate in English with a group of people with varying levels of fluency, it's important to be receptive and adaptable, tuning your ears into a whole range of different ways of using English, Jenkins says. "People who've learned other languages are good at doing that, but native speakers of English generally are monolingual and not very good at tuning in to language variation."

Scientists from the Higher School of Economics (HSE) together with colleagues from the University of Helsinki have discovered that learning foreign languages enhances the our brain's elasticity and its ability to code information. The more foreign languages we learn, the more effectively our brain reacts and processes the data accumulated in the course of learning.

When learning a second language, studies show that people exposed to more than one foreign language will have an easier time acquiring one of them. Subconsciously, our brains are always working to learn new information by taking information from "the background." Researchers at the University of Washington held an experiment to gain more information on this theory.