Babies 'cry in mother's tongue'

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BBC NEWS, 6 november 2009

German researchers say babies begin to pick up the nuances of their parents' accents while still in the womb. The researchers studied the cries of 60 healthy babies born to families speaking French and German. The French newborns cried with a rising "accent" while the German babies' cries had a falling inflection. Writing in the journal Current Biology, they say the babies are probably trying to form a bond with their mothers by imitating them.

Music the key to learning language

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The Australian November 01, 2012 

MUSIC and grammar education must be improved in Australian schools for the government's Asia white paper language goals to be successful, educators say.

As research groups predict the need for billions of extra dollars to implement the Asian language agenda, others warn it would be money misspent without basic music and grammar education as a foundation for learning a foreign language.

Phonology in Second Language Reading: Not an Optional Extra

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CATHERINE WALTER
Institute of Education, University of London, England
Vol. 42, No. 3, September 2008


In examining reading comprehension in a second language (L2), I have demonstrated that the prevailing metaphor of transfer of skills is misleading, and that what happens is access to an already existing general cognitive skill. There is evidence in first language (L1) and in L2that accessing this skill when reading in an alphabetic language involves efficient use of verbal working memory (VWM).

Melodic Learning: More Torque for the Learning Engine

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Susan Homan
Ph.D.Professor Emeritus,Childhood Education and Literacy Studies
University of South Florida

One day on Sesame Street the little girl asked Grover…


“Now here is a question, a question for you. Remember, the answer will start with a ‘Q’. Just think of a duck, be it white, brown, or black. What sound does it make? Why, a duckie goes...”