Neuroscience and language learning

Had lunch with a lecturer who specializes in children development and early childhood education. As we got onto the topic of language learning, he mentioned a recent discovery which I thought was very inspiring.

According to fMRI scans, learning of the Chinese language predominantly employs zone 9 of the brain, while learning English language uses zone 42 - 43 more (don't worry about the jargon, just know that they are two different zones of the human brain). Preliminary findings also show that children who learnt Chinese as a first language uses zone 9 in their learning of English. Thus, the stronger one is in his Chinese (which theoretically means a stronger zone 9), the better he learns English. The vice-versa, however, doesn't seem to hold true.

More research is forthcoming on this topic, but I believe the findings of this research will have great implications on language planning, teaching and learning in the years to come.