About 10 years ago Emily, a bright and well-mannered 3-1/2 year old, was enrolled in the LWFC's 10-week French immersion summer camp to get her ready for New York's Lycee Francais. Emily was a lucky girl. Her grandmother, a retired headmistress, knew something about bringing up a child bilingually. Since infancy Emily’s father and grandmother only spoke Italian to her while her mother and nanny only spoke Mandarin Chinese. So by her third summer, she spoke English and after spending more time with her mother and nanny, Emily’s Chinese was stronger but she was also fluent in Italian. Is it possible for a very young child to nearly master a fourth language in just 10 weeks? I watched Emily do just that. Her first two weeks in camp were happy but quiet as her mind absorbed the thousands of French sounds, meanings, and grammatical patterns she was acquiring through songs, projects, and play. Then week three brought the first break through as we listened to Emily creating her own three word sentences, entirely en Français. As the summer went on her French grew stronger by the day, but she experienced predictable learning curves. For example, although she never mixed English with Chinese, or Italian with English, between week three and seven the teachers and I often had to correct her as she plunked English right into the middle of a French sentence. However, by week nine Emily had stopped mixing the two languages, and it was clear that she had mastered hundreds of French nouns, their correct genders, was adding French pronouns, using tenses, and correctly arranging words into French grammar. So after being immersed in French for eight hours a day, via age-friendly activities, in a setting where she was happy Emily became fluent in French. With the right technique and conditions, a 3-1/2 year old who already speaks three languages, can master a fourth.
