Kuwaiti professor underlines teaching of foreign languages at early age

Teaching of foreign languages at early age helps students to excel at later stages of education, said Dr. Mishaal Al-Shaheen, professor of English language and literature, Kuwait University. "The early development of schoolchildren's foreign linguistic skills opens for them new horizons of chances to understand other subjects and communicate with people with different cultures," he said in a lecture here Sunday night. "This is helpful for students to become more able to solve their own problems and be academically and socially successful later on, Dr. Al-Shaheen affirmed, citing recent scientific surveys. "The focus of early linguistic teaching should be placed on diction and words; this proved to be the ideal way of foreign language acquisition, it helps prepare the minds of recipients for other aspects of the language such as grammar, and so forth," he pointed out. Dr. Al-Shaheen advised parents to expose their children to more than one foreign language and show personal interest in foreign languages in order to encourage the kids to love these languages. He also highlighted the positive impact of posting multi-lingual notices at places frequented by schoolchildren with a view to ensuring continuity of the language teaching. Scientific studies show that bilinguals and multi-linguals are better able to concentrate and memorize and less liable to Alzheimer than others, he concluded.