A Lifetime Benefit
As an immigrant in the United States and having English as my second language, it took me a while to see this fact as an advantage. I have a very thick accent and my major concern when I am speaking is to make sure the person I am talking to is actually paying attention to my message instead of my accent.
Selecting my sources for this research was very interesting, because even though many people recognize the advantages of knowing more than one language, not many really see it as a benefit to different areas such as education or their career. The article, “Influence of Bilingualism on Memory Generalization During Infancy,” noted that only in the United States, according to recent census data, 21% of school age children spoke a language other than English at home. The issue is: how many of these kids will keep speaking this second language? For me, it is really surprising when I ask some of my fellow students about their nationality or background and they proudly respond and identify themselves as Hispanic but can barely understand Spanish. Not only do they not speak it, but they also have a really hard time understanding a fully fluent Spanish speaker. It is easy to conclude that they do not consider knowing Spanish as an asset in their life, present or future.
Are there really benefits to learning more than one language? Natalie Brito and Rachel Barr explains that “having to learn different sets of rules for each language, while avoiding interference, provides the bilingual child with greater experience in learning from mixed input.” This kind of flexibility helps the children to enhance other abilities and increase his/her capacity to memorize and learning techniques. Meanwhile, the article “The Effect of Bilingualism on Creativity: Developmental and Educational Perspectives” by Mark Leikin is a great paper that focuses more on the creative benefits of learning a second language. He explains that “It has been found that the performance of balanced bilingual students, in particular, is better than of their monolingual peers on tests assessing concept formation”.
Selecting my sources for this research was very interesting, because even though many people recognize the advantages of knowing more than one language, not many really see it as a benefit to different areas such as education or their career. The article, “Influence of Bilingualism on Memory Generalization During Infancy,” noted that only in the United States, according to recent census data, 21% of school age children spoke a language other than English at home. The issue is: how many of these kids will keep speaking this second language? For me, it is really surprising when I ask some of my fellow students about their nationality or background and they proudly respond and identify themselves as Hispanic but can barely understand Spanish. Not only do they not speak it, but they also have a really hard time understanding a fully fluent Spanish speaker. It is easy to conclude that they do not consider knowing Spanish as an asset in their life, present or future.
Are there really benefits to learning more than one language? Natalie Brito and Rachel Barr explains that “having to learn different sets of rules for each language, while avoiding interference, provides the bilingual child with greater experience in learning from mixed input.” This kind of flexibility helps the children to enhance other abilities and increase his/her capacity to memorize and learning techniques. Meanwhile, the article “The Effect of Bilingualism on Creativity: Developmental and Educational Perspectives” by Mark Leikin is a great paper that focuses more on the creative benefits of learning a second language. He explains that “It has been found that the performance of balanced bilingual students, in particular, is better than of their monolingual peers on tests assessing concept formation”.
When monolinguals are compared to bilinguals, the advantages of those who speak more than one language are evident. Ingrid Piller, a linguistic expert in Australia, also explains in the web video, "The Bountiful Benefits of Being Bilingual," that “the brain is like a muscle and you have to train it” and it helps to have a control distraction better. Even when driving, bilinguals get less distracted than those who are monolinguals, she explains. Something very important that she point out is about the brain health benefits of learning more than one language. That alone should be a great incentive for everybody to train our brains and learn the most we can from other languages, not only because it will help us in our education and daily tasks, but also in improving our health.
Image 1. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ciao_logo_300dpi.jpg
Image 2. Charityn Batista Private Pic. Geneva 2013
Image 2. Charityn Batista Private Pic. Geneva 2013