Positive Effects Of Bilingualism

What do we know about the effects bilingualism has on cognitive development? Our world is becoming progressively bilingual; in the US 21% of school age children between the ages of 5-17 years old can speak other than English at home and this number is expected to increase in the coming years. On top of social reasons, the positive effects to the cognitive development of the brain when introduced to a second language are of many. The age of acquisition is vital due to the plasticity of the brain, which according to the critical period hypothesis, begins to level after five years of age. In addition to plasticity, bilingual speakers are more capable of focusing their attention to solve complex problems compared to monolingual speakers.

‘Bilingual’ people are differentiated from ‘Monolingual’ people by their frequent communication with two or more languages (Barac & Bialystok, 2012). Bilinguals are thought to be smarter than Monolinguals (Rubio-Fernández & Glucksberg, 2012). Smartness is a measure of successfulness in their education (Hatt, 2007, p. 146). Because of this, there is a debate to decide whether the next generation of children should be exposed to a Bilingual education. This has led to research into whether Bilingual education slows the learning of literacy and

Background: It is popular belief that bilingualism enhances cognitive performance. Because cognitive performance translates to academic performance, this study collected information on subjects’ bilingualism (if any) and overall academics. Investigating this relationship would reveal the effects bilingualism has on academic abilities. Such information could help to either reinforce the need to learn foreign languages or expose the insignificant academic benefits of learning other languages

Bilingualism and multilingualism are well practiced through the World. Despite it being well accepted on other parts of the globe, many areas in the United States tends to turn a cold shoulder to it.. Most education policies concerning bilingual or not based on scientific evidence and research (which has discovered the advantages and disadvantages of bilingualism) but rather pre conceived notions and stigmas when it comes to the practice. After some brief research, I believe we should embrace the "new wave" practices and policies, which are more well informed rather than the past. Researches also need to explore new ways in which the brain retains, recognizes and organizes language learning. Now is the tome to put evidence based practices and

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.

People have a way to being intelligent when knowing two languages because they are able to understand certain things more. According to The National Center on Cultural and Linguistic Responsiveness, “brains are very active and flexible when being bilingual” (2016, para. 2). Bilingual can start at any age but some have started to understand both languages at a younger age. They have a higher chance to develop both languages if starting from a younger age because they can understand the language as time goes by. There are shows that show kids at a young age about the different languages such as the TV show Dora. The show Dora shows kids the Spanish language and usually repeats the words more than once in Spanish which makes children usually want to repeat it as well and that is when they start to progress the language.

This study is important as it extremely relevant in the globalized society that we live in today, in addition to the fact that it offers further evidence on the tangible benefits of raising a child to be bilingual that come later in his or her life. Even if the study does not show a clear and convincing correlation between raising a child to be bilingual and higher academic performance in college, I believe that my study will encourage people to think more about the potential benefits of raising a child to be

Bilingualism is a person’s ability to speak two or more languages fluently. Initially it was believed that bilingualism had negative effects on an individual’s intelligence and speech and it was thought that the knowledge of multiple languages would complicate one’s thought processing rather than improve its functioning. This theory

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

As the title suggests, “Speaking in Tongues: The Many Benefits of Bilingualism” is an article that examines the advantages of bilingualism. Due to the nature of the world, a great number of people have acquired the ability to speak more than one language. The author explores the benefits such an ability offers, arguing that bilingual children develop social, linguistic and cognitive skillsets that not only provides a chance to explore different cultures, but raises a child’s awareness of how language functions. The author also weighs on the cognitive aspect; applying the works of Ellen Bialystok to their ( the author’s ) argument. In the author’s view, bilingual children are better at dealing with conflicting cues and assessing information.

Society has raised false beliefs or misinforms people when it comes to educating a bilingual child. People have a lack of information about language acquisition and how the brain is a powerful organ with the ability to learn multiple languages. Today 's adults have different opinions when is time to make the decision if they should raise their children in a bilingual home or not, and at the end they do not know what to do. The advances in science have given us more information on early childhood and how children are capable of learning in different ways. Also, has proven how a young child can learn two or more languages at the same time. However, a question that has been asked by parents multiple times is what are the benefits of raising a

According to them, bilingual children suffer on average from delays in terms of vocabulary and are disadvantaged in the language understanding and acquisitions (“The Latest”). It seems there is nothing special about bilinguals (“The Latest”). They have better cognitive abilities because language is something that we use all the time, and doing it with more than one is harder. It engages the brain in multitasking (“The Latest”).

By the emerge of globalization, being a bilingual is no longer a novelty experience any more. It is quiet normal in nowadays that people encounter bilinguals in their daily bases. There is a common sense that bilinguals should have certain abilities prior to monolinguals. Bialystok (2001) suggested that “the constant managing 2 competing languages enhance the executive function”. Moreover, her another study(Bialystok, 2004) indicated that bilingual participants also responded more rapidly to conditions that placed greater demands on working memory. In all cases the bilingual advantage was greater for older participants. These two findings imply that bilingualism have beneficial effects on the executive function and working memory.

This site contains information on 8,000 children across different ages and different levels of cognitive abilities. Three groups of kids with varying parental backgrounds were tested on their cognitive abilities. The three groups were children with two UK parents, two foreign born parents, and one foreign/one UK parent. According to Clifton-Sprigg, it has been established that early education in language influences the child’s ability to learn new skills. This poses the question whether being bilingual will be an advantage or disadvantage to the child. In this case linguists have shared opposing views on whether the child benefits from being bilingualism. Some linguists argue that bilingualism can give a distinct advantage because it improves the understanding of some concepts and improves creative ability. Other linguists offer a different perspective saying that children who are monolingual spend less time learning the language which allows them to pick up other skills easier. An observation done was that a child's linguistic ability is dependent on the parents and how suited they are to teach the child language. Problems become apparent

I found an artcle on hufflingtonpost that talks about the benefits of being bilingual. The article states that people who speak multiply laguages have a higher level of mental flexibility than people who only speak one language. In the past bilnguals were looked down on. When you're swichting languages all the time, it strengthens your mental muscle and your executive function becomes enrached. There was an experiement performed on both spanish and english speakers to see if both lagunages were active in their minds at all time. At first the subjects 512 sentences in either english or spanish, switch between the two every two sentence. They had to read cognates out load in red as quicky as possible. The results show bilnguals rarely said a