Approximately one in five American children over the age of five speak both English and another language at home, according to the American Community Survey, a component of the US Census (Kodaheart, 2017). These bilingual/multilingual children include hearing children of Deaf individuals! How does their social, emotional, and psychological development change in a bilingual environment? Here are 10 compelling arguments for why being bilingual rocks!
1. Improved Communication Capabilities
Children who speak multiple languages are exposed to a wider variety of social experiences than monolingual children. As a result, multilingual kids frequently learn how to take into account other people’s viewpoints, which helps them communicate more effectively. According to Associate Professor Kathy Kinzer of Cornell University, “children don’t have to be fully multilingual [to receive these benefits]”. Even kids who are just sometimes exposed to a different language appear to be as adept at perspective-taking. One of the most important communication skills is the capacity to take into account different points of view, which may be useful in both personal and professional contexts.
2. Increased linguistic awareness
Before they are physically able to utilize the language, babies can recognize and discriminate the linguistic sounds in the many home languages. According to research, babies who are only exposed to one language can only recognize that language. As a result, multilingual infants get a head start on language learning. Language recognition will increase as children are exposed to more different languages.
3. Superior Executive Performance
Cognitive talents known as executive functioning skills include problem-solving, planning, and reasoning. According to studies, multilingual kids frequently have stronger executive functioning abilities than their monolingual peers, especially in the areas of inhibition and monitoring. This may be due to the frequent language changes in a multilingual household. A crucial indicator of academic achievement is having strong executive functioning abilities.
4. Observant of their environment
Being multilingual has several benefits, one of which is the capacity to constantly observe the surroundings. “Bilinguals have to switch languages fairly regularly – you might have to communicate to your father in one language and your mother in another language,” said Albert Costa, a researcher from the University of Pompeu Fabra in Spain. It entails paying attention to changes in your environment in a similar way to how we keep an eye on our surroundings when driving. The ability to maintain track of everything going on around you is a very useful skill that can be applied to all facets of life, whether you’re playing sports or just walking down the street!
5. Greater Career Possibilities
Education standards are rising daily as a result of increased competition (BAW, 2022). But a multilingual applicant may have a distinct edge over a monolingual applicant in the job market due to their ability to communicate in multiple languages. The capacity to communicate in multiple languages is seen by the global business sector as an “indispensable instrument for relationship building and financial success.” Finding employment may become simpler as a result, and salaries may rise as well. “Those entering the workforce in 2014 with second language fluency may expect an additional 10 to 15 percent pay rise,” says Ryan McMunn, a language expert and CEO of BRIC Language Systems. Bilingual people can even easily provide the best dissertation writing service uk in different languages.
6. postpone the start of Alzheimer’s/Dementia
According to research from the Institute of Medical Sciences in Hyderabad, India, those who speak a second language experience a 4.5-year delay at the beginning of Alzheimer’s disease. This is because utilizing many languages requires ongoing mental control, which keeps the brain active and prevents cognitive decline. Delaying these illnesses can improve your quality of life and the quality of life of people around you.
7. Competent multitaskers
Due to their capacity to transition between languages, multilingual people have proven to be stronger multitaskers. When a bilingual person routinely speaks two languages, the control network must be used, according to researchers quoted in a US News story, “to prevent interference from the other language and to maintain the dominance of the desired language.” This gives multilingual people the capacity to multitask as well as the focus and ability to block out distractions while working on a single job and they do not have to search answers for questions like how long should a dissertation be. These are excellent abilities to have in any setting.
8. Viewpoints are multiplied by multiple languages.
People frequently develop different ideas and preferences when they learn new languages. Even the way that languages create a “linguistic mindset,” which is defined as feeling like a different person when using different languages, has been studied by researchers. This could be brought on by the various grammatical and linguistic structures. Bilingual volunteers in an experiment by psycholinguist Susan Ervin-Tripp were given an incomplete sentence. They were told to complete the sentence in each of their native tongues. She discovered that the participants made varying ending decisions, and that language played a role in these decisions.
9. Enhances Memory
Language learning is greatly influenced by memory, and multilingual persons frequently perform better on memory tests than monolingual people. Recognizing faces or remembering names are only a couple of the cognitive and social advantages of having a good memory.
10. Enhances capacity to learn new languages
According to a recent study, multilingual people have an easier time learning a new language than monolingual folks do. In reality, learning many languages helps speed up the process of learning a new language and increase proficiency in one’s mother tongue! This is so because languages help each other out and give us tools to improve our phonological, morphological, and syntactic abilities.
Conclusion
Being multilingual has several social and cognitive benefits, all of which are derived from early and ongoing language exposure. Don’t panic if you haven’t started learning a second language yet. It’s never too late to learn, says Dr. Ellen Bialystok of York University in Toronto, Canada. Consider teaching a new sign language to your family and learning it together if you currently speak two other languages at home. Make certain to encourage language learning through language play.
References
Kodaheart (2017). 10 advantages to being multilingual. Http://kodaheart.com/10-things-21/
BAW (2022). How Academic Help Providers Save the Students’ Future? https://bestassignmentwriter.co.uk/blog/how-academic-help-providers-save-the-students-future/
