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Chaper 1. The Bilingual Edge en-GB

There are numerous cognitive, social, and educational benefits for children who learn two languages: - Bilingual children have advantages in areas like creativity, mental flexibility, focus, and metalinguistic awareness that can help them perform better academically. - Knowing a second language promotes positive attitudes towards other cultures and reduces biases, which is important for success in today's multicultural world. - Different languages emphasize different skills, so bilingualism allows children to develop a wider range of abilities.

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MARIA FERNANDEZ
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35 views3 pages

Chaper 1. The Bilingual Edge en-GB

There are numerous cognitive, social, and educational benefits for children who learn two languages: - Bilingual children have advantages in areas like creativity, mental flexibility, focus, and metalinguistic awareness that can help them perform better academically. - Knowing a second language promotes positive attitudes towards other cultures and reduces biases, which is important for success in today's multicultural world. - Different languages emphasize different skills, so bilingualism allows children to develop a wider range of abilities.

Uploaded by

MARIA FERNANDEZ
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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How can your child benefit from the bilingual advantage?

KNOWING TWO LANGUAGES GIVES CHILDREN A COGNITIVE ADVANTAGE

Being bilingual is an undeniable advantage in life (brain benefits: creativity, flexibility, better exam
results, better reading and writing skills, social advantages (intercultural understanding,
adaptability, competitiveness).

Research claims that knowing more than one language promotes intelligence and refers to
different types of tests. E.g:

1. Creativity and mental flexibility: they tend to give more and more creative answers than
monolinguals (they outperform them). This is important for today's world and future success.
Bilingualism can become a source of inspiration when writing because it brings new
perspectives on everyday events.
2. Metalinguistic awareness (awareness of language as an object and system): It is greater in
bilinguals as they are able to analyse and play with the linguistic system (appreciate jokes,
metaphors...). It is also related to learning to read. In addition, bilingual children can
understand and associate an object with two names (knowing linguistic ambiguities earlier).
Metalinguistic awareness enables understanding of how language works and is related to
test scores and literacy.
3. Discrimination of important information: Bilinguals ignore distracting information and focus
better on the task at hand. They ignore misleading and irrelevant details (an important
advantage in today's distracting educational environments).
4. Cognitive ability: For example, bilinguals seem to be better able to focus on the
grammatical task than monolinguals.
5. Ability to control language production

However, bilingualism does not influence all aspects of cognition. Firstly, the advantages of
bilingualism generally apply to children who have an advanced command of the two languages.
Literacy materials are very important to increase metalinguistic awareness.

LEARNING ANOTHER LANGUAGE IMPROVES INTERCULTURAL UNDERSTANDING

To get to the point of understanding a culture, knowledge of its language is implicit. In addition,
researchers claim that children who learn a second language have positive attitudes towards
second language speakers (positive effects on intercultural attitudes and behaviour). This
phenomenon is especially true in dual language programmes, or
bidirectional. This is reflected in positive attitudes towards other groups, increased likelihood of
relating to other linguistic and cultural groups and the non-internalisation of negative stereotypes
about other groups.
Today's society is highly multicultural and thanks to languages, we can achieve greater
intercultural understanding and sensitivity.

An evaluation in a two-way immersion programme found that children in this programme did not
take linguistic or ethnic differences into account and valued their friends as individuals rather than
as members of a particular group. In other words, bilingualism has an impact not only on
individual success but also on the success of a community as a whole.
Thus, bilingualism cultivates qualities such as knowledge and understanding of other people
and cultures, the ability to make friends across social barriers, and creative problem-solving
skills.

LANGUAGE AND CULTURE


Language and culture are intimately linked and have a strong influence on the way we think (there
are different ways of categorising and organising information through their grammars and
vocabularies). These linguistic differences, in turn, can influence the way we see the world.

Thus, children learning two languages learn that different people have different points of view and
it is easier for them to understand that one point of view is not better or worse than another, just
different.

HIGHLY VERB-AL KOREAN CHILDREN


The languages we learn also influence the skills we develop. For example, Korean children are
better at verb-related tasks and English-speaking children are better at noun-related tasks. The
final message is that languages place more emphasis on different areas and therefore knowing
more than one language allows us to acquire a wider range of knowledge and skills.

KNOWING MORE THAN ONE LANGUAGE ENRICHES FAMILY LIFE, CULTURE AND
COMMUNICATION.

Second or heritage languages (the language spoken by previous generations of a family) are
very important for maintaining cultural traditions. It is very difficult for children to understand or
participate in a cultural event if they do not understand the language.
In addition, knowledge of one's mother tongue can be an important source of pride and self-
esteem. Many studies show that children do better in school (and life) when they have a strong
sense of identity and of their place of origin.
Preserving cultural heritage often provides the strength to face challenges and inequalities. Of
course, speaking the family's mother tongue also has to do with the need to know who we are and
where we come from, to give the family a sense of heritage and to foster closeness between
parents and children.
Knowledge of a heritage language can be an important part of identity.

BILINGUALISM PROVIDES AN EDUCATIONAL AND PROFESSIONAL ADVANTAGE

Knowing more than one language provides an advantage in both education and career, now more
than ever.
In today's competitive academic environment, we all want that extra edge as global development
continues to increase the demand for bilingual professionals.
Knowledge of more than one language pays in the labour market and this trend is likely to intensify
(in much of the world, language skills are crucial for business success). According to some
experts, the language differential (higher pay for bilinguals compared to monolinguals) is between
5 and 20 %.

The number of primary schools offering investment programmes has increased dramatically in
recent years. In many cities, in the most elite and competitive schools, instruction is provided
entirely in a foreign language. In many of these schools, students with some prior knowledge of
another language are given preference in the competitive admissions and financial aid process.

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