BLOGGING ABOUT MULTILINGUALISM
As I wrote in my first blog post about moving to the United States and learning English while in high school, I thought to discuss about being a bilingual and the benefits of being able to speak multiple languages. In-class, we have several students who can speak multiple languages and we touched on the topic of how the ability to speak multiple languages allows for increased understanding of translingual orientation. Not only does this idea of translingual orientation increase with the ability to speak many languages, but so do biological cognitive and executive functions of the brain.
I found a very interesting article on the New York Times from 2012 that talks about the several benefits of being a bilingual. The article outlines recent research that has shown that the bilingual experiences improves attention processes that people use for "planning, solving problems and performing various other mentally demanding tasks." As a result of this, students can stay focused longer on tasks and short-term memory capacity increases. I thought that it's very interesting to think that just the ability to comprehend and understand another language can have such drastic benefits on people's brain. I guess that I have now better cognitive and executive functions than when I was monolingual and couldn't speak English. Maybe even all that time students spend in Spanish and French class - for example - isn't used on just learning to speak and write in a different dialect, but also at the same time on improving the health and capacity of the brain. Bhattacharjee, Yudhijit. "Why Bilinguals Are Smarter." The New York Times. The New York Times, 17 Mar. 2012. Web. 28 Jan. 2015.
7 Comments
Rajit Bhandari
1/30/2015 05:17:44 am
Unlike you, I am not fluent in any other language besides English, but I do know little bits and pieces of Spanish, German, and Hindi. Knowing multiple languages sure does help with memory capacity skills, but do you think being multilingual sometimes has its downsides? For example, do you ever mix up words between Finnish and English when in class or holding a conversation? I know this has happened to many of my friends who made the transition between America and other countries.
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Mandy Suhr-Sytsma
2/4/2015 03:22:27 am
Great question! What do you think, Paav
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1/31/2015 07:23:23 am
I read that article as well! But I also read another article entitled "The Bilingual Advantage" (link:http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/31/science/31conversation.html) that counters what you say about high school Spanish and French classes helping students gain a cognitive advantage/ improve brain capacity because neuroscientist Ellen Bialystok states that: "You have to use both languages all the time. You won’t get the bilingual benefit from occasional use." However, you bring up an interesting point about the cognitive benefits of true bilingualism. I agree, scientifically speaking, learning multiple languages is incredibly beneficial for the brain.
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Mandy Suhr-Sytsma
2/4/2015 03:23:19 am
Great question, Jessee. What do others think?
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Jenna Maizes
2/1/2015 01:49:52 am
I can relate to your experiences with being multilingual. I work on an ambulance as an EMT, and sometimes you encounter patients who do not speak a word of English. It is extremely difficult to communicate with them, and to discover what is hurting them, if you can't speak their language. Personally, I speak some Spanish, so when we had a patient who only spoke Spanish, it was easy for me to communicate.
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Doris Cikopana
2/1/2015 03:18:35 am
I relate to your experience with bilingualism. As you mentioned, I do think that bilingualism does increase the memory capacity. I speak English, Albanian, Italian and Spanish so I know that when I try to remember a word I will make a mental note that it means something in one of the other languages and then I see how it relates to the topic. In my opinion and based on my experiences, being multilingual increases cognitive function and is very helpful.
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Anu Kafi
2/1/2015 07:26:27 am
I agree with your statement that the benefits of attending foreign language classes include "improving the health and capacity of the brain" in addition to just learning language and culture. I have taken foreign language classes in Latin, Italian, Persian, and Spanish. I feel, in comparison to my monolingual peers, I am able to sit and complete longer tasks with shorter breaks and even focus better on assignments. Additionally, I feel growing up speaking both English and Persian equally, it made it even easier for me to success in my other foreign language courses.
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