New research has discovered that as soon as babies are born they cry with the same "accent" as their mothers!  This suggests that they begin to learn language in the womb.  Previously, it was though that babies recognise sounds from the outside world while they are still in the womb, and that they are settled by the sound of their mother's voice.  But, this research goes a bit further and suggests that the mother's voice influences the baby's speech.

The research was carried out in Germany and published in the journal, "Current Biology".  The scientists analysed the cries of 60 healthy babies between the age of three and five days old.  Half of them were born to French-speaking mothers and the other half were German.  The results showed that the French babies cried with a different "accent" compared to the German ones.

The French babies cried with a "raising melody"; the German babies cried with a "falling melody".  The pattern, according to the researchers, are consistent with the characteristic differences between the two languages."

Previous research has shown that babies can imitate vowel sounds by 12 weeks.  They would physically be unable to do so any earlier.  Crying can be done from birth without the need for well developed vocal chords.  Babies are motivated to copy the sounds of their mother in order to attract her attention and encourage bonding.

Just as your kids are beginning to place where their house is when they return from journeys out, suddenly they begin to discover that the world is made up of lots of different countries with different people speak different languages.  Not exactly an easy idea to grasp!  Having an understanding of the world and the diversity of people and language is an important aspect of early education.

Just as kids learn their immediate surroundings through their senses, so you can teach about the world by appealing to their senses too.

Introduce the concept of language through sound - talking and hearing.  If you're lucky, you might be fluent in more than one language, but even if you're not, you probably know some basic words such as 'Hello' and 'Thank You', and maybe some numbers, in a number of languages?  Talk about language and explain how people say these words in different countries.  Explain how even people in the English-speaking world talk in different voices and use slightly different words in certain circumstances.

You can have a lot of fun explaining about different foods from round the world as you introduce basic foods from different countries.  Rice, pasta, pizza and different breads come from different countries.  You can readily buy fruit and vegetables from countries around the world.  If your children are adventurous eaters then try them with simple Chinese, Mexican, Italian, Thai, Indian and other cultural dishes!

Teach geography and sense of distance by playing games.  Create a representation of each continent on pieces of paper and spread them around a large room, or better still, the garden.  Locate the continents in roughly the way that they are laid out across the globe - Asia, Australasia, North America, South America and Europe.  Then simply shout out 'Swim to North America' and have them perform swimming strokes as they run over to North America!

Learning about the world is so important for our little ones, and there are so many games and activities that we can play to foster a desire to learn.