Beyond The United States : The Benefits Of Learning A New Language

In the summer of 2017, a young man named Justin went to Mexico for the first time to visit family. Justin, speaking only English, struggled to communicate with those around him where the main language spoken in that country is Spanish. Here, being bilingual would sure be handy. Knowing more than one language, becomes beneficial in class, or when people are trying to communicate with each other, or possibly even to order food. Learning a second language should be mandatory for kids and also adults for the advantages they will earn, for a sense of belonging, and also to find ways of teaching others about another dialect.

This paper will touch upon the positive benefits of bilingualism and how it affects children, during their childhood and well into adulthood. In addition this paper will look into the scientific and general advantages of bilingualism through scientific studies on the subject. This paper will also identify some of the pros and cons of growing up bilingual. Specifically to be cognitive flexibility, metalinguistic awareness, communicative sensitivity, attentiveness and combatting dementia. A new research era began into bilingualism after the research of Peal and Lambert in 1962, this was a break through in research, which proved that kids who were bilingual did better at the tasks than those who were monolingual. Prior to this, bilingualism had been thought to cause negative set backs among children. These setbacks include retardation in children and increased confusion in separating both languages at an early stage. Although this theory has been outdated, bilingualism is still known to cause confusion for a short period of time throughout childhood lifespan. Although bilingualism has its pros and cons, there are more pros than cons. Kids who grow up in a bilingual household are known to experience some confusion separating two languages or infants are known to go through a silent stage. In simple tasks as the “Simon task”, bilingual participants are known to perform better and have faster reaction times. Simon tasks test the individual’s attentive control as well as reaction

Learning a new language can not only intimidating but also require hard work and dedication. However, even amongst all the trials and tribulations, learning a new language can be very rewarding in the end. Learning a new language can assist with gaining employment, getting through day to day activities, and even help within the dating world for those that are interested in dating outside of their race. With knowing all of the hard work that goes into learning a new language, I wanted to see what things were like for those who wanted to learn the English language. A language that is most commonly used around the world and one that is set to help many gain much reward.

Has it never crossed your mind how handy it would be to speak the language of the country you are being on vacations – let say Russian, Chinese, or (why not?), Kurdish. This is, indeed, a rhetorical question because wherever you are from, you have already had for sure a cross-cultural encounter that may had not worked as well as desired... If you grow up being bilingual, you probably know exactly about which transactional problems while speaking we are talking about, yet being bilingual has much more benefits than disadvantages. For instance, being bilingual or even multilingual is not only helpful for travelling or working but for your mental health. Psysiological studies show people speaking several languages are assessed as better while performing cognitive tasks .

A dual language bilingual education strategy is usually employed in public schools. Typically the minority language students and the majority language students are evenly distributed throughout the classrooms. Both languages are used for instruction with evenly distributed 50/50 time. One teacher shall instruct with the home language while other instruction is in English. The two teachers work collaboratively through all the lessons. Since these students are in mainstream education, it is no surprise that most students prefer to use English the majority language. The goals of a dual language program are to develop high levels of proficiency of the first language then subsequently the second language. Consequently, it is desired to

Despite these disadvantages, there are also some advantages. Some scientists have found that learning a second language can develop human intelligence. They believe and have proven that learning a second language offers remarkable benefits for our brains: increased flexibility and improved cognition. Bilingual or multilingual people have a clear, substantial mental advantage over what the public thinks. Learning a foreign language does not simply mean that we can talk to a wide range of people in the world; it is in fact much more fundamental. According to Dr. Thomas Bak, a lecturer in the Philosophy, Psychology, and Language Sciences Department at the University of Edinburgh, learning a second language helps a person develop the brain, even though the person is not fluent in that language. The study found that learning a second language made the brain develop cognitive skills, not only associated with languages, and also protects the elderly from Alzheimer's and dementia disease when people are elderly (Delistraty). Many people know that using the brain frequently helps to prevent dementia disease. Studying another language is more economical than paying for hospital costs in the future. This is great news not only someone who is multilingual, but also positive news for everyone. In addition, when some people speak more than 2 languages, they use their brain a lot. Whereby, it helps to improve concentration and multitasking ability too. When people learn a second language,

If only one knew that bilingualism helps the brain in many different ways, perhaps they would've kept watching Dora when they were younger. Bilingualism is the ability to speak two languages. The world is filled with many different cultures that have been widespread throughout the entire globe since the existence and development of the earliest of languages. During this time, nations would come in contact with one another (mostly by surprise and force) and cultures would soon be jumbled up with other cultures. Because of this, it was normal for many to be brought up in an environment with multiple languages being used. This is very prevalent in areas such as Europe, Africa, and Asia where there are many neighboring countries near each other’s borders. Here in the United States, there are many languages from foreign countries ranging from Spanish, Chinese, and Japanese, being spoken from those who have immigrated to the states. It can be very helpful and useful to learn a second language in order to communicate with other people from foreign countries that still aren’t familiar with the native English language. Other than this, becoming bilingual comes with a handful of benefits for the brain. As a result of learning a new language, one can find improvements in brain functionality such as decision making and focus, the regression of diseases such as dementia and Alzheimer’s, and also an improved perception. These can help with mental stability and making sure that the

“We are surrounded by language during nearly every waking moment of our lives. We use language to communicate our thoughts and feelings, to connect with others and identify with our culture, and to understand the world around us.

People say learning a foreign language is a waste of time and resources. Many Americans believe the English language is the most dominant in the world so what’s the point of learning another language? It is a common believe that the English language is the most spoken language in the world, however it is actually not. Furthermore, learning a foreign language does more than just being another way to talk, write, or read, learning another language brings benefits. A foreign language is useful in many ways such as Mandarin which is the most spoken language in the world, or being able to connect to foreign cultures, and it also useful in national security.

Nelson Mandela, as cited in U.S Department of Education (2010), once said, if you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his own language, that goes to his heart (para. 14). Linguistic diversity has become an important factor in society and more and more people are growing up with the ability to speak more than one language. The Linguistic Society of America (n.d) states that most of the world’s population is bilingual or multilingual in the world, where an estimated 5,000 distinct languages are being spoken, and only minorities of citizens are monolingual (para. 1). Being bilingual means that a person is able to speak two languages fluently, while multilingualism means that a person can speak two or more languages with high proficiencies. In the United States and especially in the Washington Metropolitan area, a variety of bilingual people from all different backgrounds and ethnicities live together in one community, so hearing languages from all parts of the world is a phenomenon that can be witnessed on a daily basis. Their abilities have a positive effect on the human brain while also impacting different aspects of life, such as cognitive capabilities, business opportunities and social communication skills.

Foreign language education has always been less of a priority than any other subject and has always been a thought towards the end of secondary school education. In schools, there is no exposure to any other languages other than English for most people until high school. If students do take a foreign language in high school, many don’t continue learning in college and therefore never actually become fluent in other languages. Foreign language education has shown to have benefits that would greatly help students develop. Learning a foreign language can develop cognitive abilities and increase cognitive processing as well as develop analytical skills, and these benefits can only be acquired when there is a good grasp of the language. Another problem is how foreign language education is largely focused on European languages such as French or Spanish. More than half the most commonly spoken languages in the world are Asian languages but foreign language education barely covers Asian languages. Learning Asian languages would help make interactions with businesses and governments of Asian countries a lot better in today’s globalized world. Schools are starting to teach more Mandarin but other Asian languages are still not being taught widely. Incorporating Asian languages into the education system can be a great benefit in terms of trade, communication, cultural knowledge, and diversity. There should be more of a focus on foreign language education at a younger age and also more

There are many mental and other health benefits that go along with learning a new language. Expanding who you can talk to is one major benefit. You know how most people in your community and country speak English? A lot right? Well imagine that many people, times more! Knowing another language gives you a key to communicate with people from other places and expand your knowledge of that culture. Bilingual brains operate differently than people who speak one language, being bilingual improves necessary problem solving skills, assessing other emotions of people, and overall making you smarter. Once you have learned one language it’s much easier to learn another. Writing and multitasking also come along with speaking two languages. Reading and writing improve by having to push your brain to know this language. Many studies show that multitasking is built because like how you switch between languages you also can switch between activities better. The memory muscle also improves because now it’s working double so it leaves more space, little things like recipes and directions become easier to memorize. Also because nothing always translates perfect while learning a foreign language grammar and structure skills also improve which is a given when, I do not like cats translates into I do cat not like.

To learn a Foreign language is always overly pushed upon students in High School. Some states require students to earn the credit before being able to even graduate and move on to further their education. In the opinion of many people this required standard is irrelevant. Why should the students who live in the United States lose time on other helpful subjects to learn a language who only less than half of the world speaks? I will narrow it down to specifically the languages that are taught in school systems: Spanish, French, and German.

Foreign languages are a must in today's world. There are many needs for a second language to be learned by everyone. The growing need to learn more languages is becoming more apparent in the public world today. In order to fix this problem, the school system needs to teach multiple foreign languages in order to grow as a nation both mentally and culturally.

Language has been in the world since humans began to exist on the Earth. Language is an important part in constructing people’s perception and cultures. It is the reason that aggressors tried to teach their language to the victims who were invaded. People in the world, nowadays, interact with foreign people who speak different languages, so the possibility that people meet foreign people is increasing. As time goes, the society where people live requires them to learn a second or third languages. Some people think that they do not feel like they need to learn a foreign language, such as America and China. They claim that people can use the time better instead of learning a second language. In fact, this is the truth that we can survive even if we don’t know other languages. However, since the trend of our world has been changing, people make an effort to learn a foreign language for different purposes. Becoming a bilingual person(or multilingual person) gives an opportunity for people to gain more and better skills and abilities than other people who do not learn a second language. For these reasons, many researchers study and search benefits and necessity of learning a foreign language. Thus, many schools in the world have formally started a class which is learning a second language because of getting the positive things even though we are able to live in our world without knowing another country’s language. We will have a lot of advantages if we know how to speak and