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Bilingual Kids Show More Creativity
An anonymous reader tips news of a study from researchers at the University of Strathclyde which found bilingual children to be significantly more successful at a set of tasks than children who spoke only one language. "The differences were linked to the mental alertness required to switch between languages, which could develop skills useful in other types of thinking." Lead researcher Fraser Lauchlan said, "Bilingualism is now largely seen as being beneficial to children but there remains a view that it can be confusing, and so potentially detrimental to them. Our study has found that it can have demonstrable benefits, not only in language but in arithmetic, problem solving and enabling children to think creatively. We also assessed the children's vocabulary, not so much for their knowledge of words as their understanding of them. Again, there was a marked difference in the level of detail and richness in description from the bilingual pupils."
Who the hell thinks this? I grew up in a bilingual household and then took Spanish in high school, so I'm semi-trilingual. Childhood is the best time to learn a new language since children can still hear the differences between phonemes that aren't present in the main society's language.
I'm sure diversity in doing things instead of single mindedness is nearly always valuable.
Lera Boroditsky's research has come up with results that challenge some basic assumptions in linguistics. One such finding is that rather than language simply expressing thought processes, it shapes mental models of the world.
I wasn't biligual as a child, but I am now at least.
For me, from the moment on I was able to not only communicate, but also think in both languages, a lot changed.
Certain concepts click together easily in one language, but if I had to use the other language to grasp them, I'd get stuck. And it's not always my first language which is superior, as you might expect.
Each language brings with it a different way of thinking, the cultural aspect, that's coded into it.
It's very helpful to switch between languages for different tasks. Kind of like using mutiple virtual desktops.
Seeing how the "same" word translate differently in another language helps to fix in your mind the differences between:
- capitol / capital
- principle / principal
- affect / effect
- its et al
- theirs et al
I could go on, but these silly mistakes mostly happen to speakers ignorant of their own native language. Bilingualism kills that ignorance.
ID: the nose did not occur naturally, how would we wear glasses otherwise? (apologies to Voltaire)