Back in middle school, most of us can recall taking a class to learn a second language. It might have been a requirement, however, many students did not enjoy it, only a few continued it in high school. Then, there are those like me, who actually wanted to learn Spanish, so I’ve now been practicing it for 10 years. Unfortunately, after all of the education, including a three-week trip to Spain, while I should be fluent, I’m definitely not. This can probably be explained by many different things, including: my own neglect, a failure in our education system, or it might be something as simple as starting to learn a language years after the critical period (up until around age 7) after which, it is incredibly more difficult to become fluent in a second language. Some people have the benefit of growing up speaking two languages: one at home and one at school. Fluency in two languages has many different benefits both in learning and in everyday life. It might even prevent those who are bilingual from specific diseases. Does this mean that bilingual children have an advantage over monolingual children?

There is evidence to show that those who are bilingual may be better at performing certain tasks, like tasks that require control. A study by Bialystok (1999) highlights that children who are bilingual have a longer attention span and are able to show their language processes more obviously and quickly than monolingual children. When recognition and recall tests were given to the children in her study, it was found that bilingual children are much better at solving experimental problems, like sorting tasks (Bialystok, 1999). They are able to learn rules and identify pictures faster than those who are monolingual (Bialystok, 1999). This could be explained by the fact that children who speak more than one language can understand and apply two separate languages, in other words, two different language structures, in situations that require them to be able to determine the appropriate language. In another study, these results were supported because it was found that children who spoke Turkish and Dutch were better at phoneme awareness, the ability to understand the different sounds that a word makes, and vocabulary than the children who only spoke Dutch (Janssen et al., 2013). There is also evidence that shows that bilingual children have advantages in executive control, which is the ability to control what types of language comes out. In a study by Barac et al. (2016), it was determined that bilingualism is, “a powerful form of ‘brain training’ that improves children’s development of executive control.” Overall, in tests that examine their total executive control, bilingual children outperformed monolingual children, showing differences in the brain that might explain what helps these children. As demonstrated by these empirical studies, bilingual children might have better attention spans, learning techniques, and higher ability to learn information at a faster rate.

Something to consider is how these children become so much better at tasks spoke about above. I have a friend that has been bilingual her whole life. As a child, she was raised speaking Polish. Her parents only spoke Polish to her, even though they were required to speak English at their jobs. Both of her parents came directly from Poland and raised my friend in the U.S. Through playing with her neighbors, watching TV, and especially going to school, she learned English using context. In my interview with her, I asked her a number of different questions about being bilingual. Because she wasn’t taught English by her parents, she had to understand the new language quickly enough so that she could learn in school. While she struggled in preschool, as she got older, she was able to incorporate English into her vocabulary. When asked if she thought that being bilingual helped her, she didn’t believe it did. She said, “if anything, I was doing worse… when I was learning new concepts, I had to have it explained a number of times.” I also asked my friend if she thought it was advantageous to be fluent in more that one language. She made the point that she really wouldn’t know if it was advantageous, because she had always been bilingual and wouldn’t know what it is like not to be. She explained that Polish didn’t necessarily help her learn because her educational background is exclusively in English. The only time that it was beneficial was when she was learning Spanish in school, because some of the words were very similar in Polish. She told me that Polish would always be apart of her life. She plans on teaching it to her children, because her entire family is very Polish, so it would be necessary to know the language. Something that I found very interesting, however, is that she is in the midst of learning American Sign Language (ASL). Usually, when someone is already fluent in one language, it’s very simple to pick up another, just as the way Polish had helped her with Spanish. However, she seems to struggle picking up ASL and I wonder if it’s because it is a physical language rather than instead of spoken.

It is very difficult to learn two languages, especially if you’re learning other subjects at the same time. For children who are learning two languages, they can struggle to keep up with their coursework. Yes, they have some learning benefits, but they still have to face learning all of their education content in a completely different language. A study done by Konishi et al. (2014) outlines six principles that explain how we learn language and show what problems children might have when learning English later on, instead of those who learn two languages from birth. The first principle is that children learn what they hear most, which is why learning English, or any other second language can be difficult, as it can be easy to mix the languages up if you’re hearing both in your daily life. What Konishi et al. (2014) suggests is teaching children English, or other languages, through the things that may interest them would require them to pay closer attention to the language that is associated to what they like to learn about. Other principles include integrating the correct grammar and vocabulary while maintaining their attention. Doing this would help them acquire fluency in English, or other languages that they’re trying to learn.

In regards to the children that easily pick up a second language, or are taught from birth, having it integrated into their daily lives has a few clear benefits. In one study, the researcher supports another study’s findings that both children and adults who are bilingual have a better attention span (Rubio-Fernańdez, 2016). This theory explains why bilinguals are able to outperform others who only know one language. In a test that requires children to indicate where a misplaced marble would originally have been before it was moved, bilingual children, as young as the age of three, are able to remember where the marble would have been looked for first. Monolingual children would continue to fail up until the age of four, but bilingual children are successful when given this challenge. This test along with other false-belief tasks have been used to test adults and children to determine their attention span, their memories, and other contributions to learning and perception. Essentially, those who are bilingual are much better at these tasks.

It’s been said that once someone becomes fluent in a second language, it’s easier to pick up other languages, as well. Polyglots, or people who have fluency in more than two languages, have claimed that it all started with learning one language, and since then, it takes little time to learn a new language. If there are such benefits for those who are capable of fluently speaking two languages, are there more benefits for those who can speak even more? One study focused on the type of memory that polyglots have. Saegert et al. (1975) used two tests to examine the quality of the memory of polyglots, to study how their memory actually works. Interestingly enough, during the tests, although some participants showed a few areas of high-quality memory, another test showed that their mind might work in a linguistically mixed way. This showed evidence of a memory that encoded in a different way than a “regular” memory. These participants could easily switch languages, but when it came to remembering words in specific language, they had a more difficult time doing so. This is because they used the meaning of the word to store it in memory, instead of the specific memory (Saegert et al., 1975).

Another area of bilingualism that might hold advantages is during the onset of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). One study examines the cognitive reserve. This is what prevents decline and delays in brain function, both in bilingual and monolingual patients with Alzheimer’s disease (Perani et al., 2016). It was found that the more someone used a second language in their life, the greater an effect it had on the structure of the brain. Perani and colleagues concluded that bilingualism is a good mechanism for cognitive reserve and that it helps protect against the deterioration of the brain (Perani et al., 2016). These findings might be a step toward helping scientists delay the onset of symptoms in patients with Alzheimer’s disease and dementia.

While there might be a few disadvantages to learning a language at a young age, there are benefits. Picking up the language to the same fluency, bilingual children and adults show a benefit in their learning behaviors, language acquisition and even protection against diseases. For those who are over the age of seven, it will be more difficult to obtain true fluency in another language. However, it might be beneficial in the long run, especially when it comes to overall brain chemistry and health. To answer the original question, it might be true that bilingual children have advantages over monolingual children, but not in all facets of life. After all, bilingual children have to spend more time acquiring and applying two languages. Nevertheless, altogether, it might be better for you and your (future) children to learn another language. Think of it as just connecting with more people, because you’ll be able to meet so many more with a language, in addition to English.

References

Barac, R., Moreno, S., & Bialystok, E. (2016). Behavioral and Electrophysiological Differences in Executive Control Between Monolingual and Bilingual Children. Child Development, 87(4), 1277-1290. doi:10.1111/cdev.12538

Bialystok, E. (1999). Cognitive Complexity and Attentional Control in the Bilingual Mind. Child Development, 70(3), 636-644. doi:10.1111/1467-8624.00046

Janssen, M., Bosman, A. M., & Leseman, P. P. (2011). Phoneme awareness, vocabulary and word decoding in monolingual and bilingual Dutch children. Journal of Research in Reading, 36(1), 1-13. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9817.2011.01480.x

Konishi, H., Kanero, J., Freeman, M. R., Golinkoff, R. M., & Hirsh-Pasek, K. (2014). Six Principles of Language Development: Implications for Second Language Learners. Developmental Neuropsychology, 39(5), 404-420. doi:10.1080/87565641.2014.931961

J., D. (2017, December 5). What is it like to be a bilingual child? [Personal interview].

Perani, D., Farsad, M., Ballarini, T., Lubian, F., Malpetti, M., Fracchetti, A., . . . Abutalebi, J. (2017). The impact of bilingualism on brain reserve and metabolic connectivity in Alzheimers dementia. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 114(7), 1690-1695. doi:10.1073/pnas.1610909114

Rubio-Fernández, P. (2016). Why are bilinguals better than monolinguals at false-belief tasks? Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 24(3), 987-998. doi:10.3758/s13423-016-1143-1

Saegert, J., Hamayan, E., & Ahmar, H. (1975). Memory for language of input in polyglots. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Learning & Memory, 1(5), 607-613. doi:10.1037/0278-7393.1.5.607