Project 2 (

The advantages of multilingualism .

Introduction

The main topic in my number two project are the advantages that multilingualism provides to students and also how it helps develop new neurological networks that wouldn’t be activated by other means.
My main goal is to discover how much does multilingualism infers in to academic performance and what other abilities might it trigger .
The constant use of more that one language in one’s life has proven to be very beneficial both in Academic and Regular life For example one text that helps develop my theory is Moll/Gonzalez: Lessons from Research with Language-Minority Children ,which I would like to quote from page number 157 and it says in reference to minority children who study English ,but have different native languages.
“Children can formulate their own research questions, search for and document their sources of information, abstract relevant information from multiple text, conduct interview to supplement their readings and produce text that summarize and communicate what they have learned.”
So as I’m trying to portrait here, the main idea of this project is to prove beyond doubt how beneficial is multilingualism, in quantitative terms if possible. While trying to prove my belief several question come to mind as: Which is the best stage to learn a different languages? Or How do brain synapses change while learning new languages?
So as we can presume language is a crucial part in our understanding of the world and also the framework of our own thoughts, so its impact on our intellectual development is indispensable. As Seneca said once “Speech is the mirror of the mind”

Literature Review.

In addition of scientific text such as Moll/Gonzales , I Review other scientific material such as Dufresne, Therese and Masny, Diana, "Multiple literacies: Linking the research on bilingualism and biliteracies to the practical", Paediatr Child Health. 2006 November; 11(9): 577–579 and also 2. Hakuta, Kenji "Cognitive Development of Bilingual Children", Center for Language Education and Research .This two articles provided a lot of information and research that had been done before and help’s to confirm my previous statement.
For example Summarizing Dufrense and Mansy their article addresses the fundamental developmental differences between monolingualism and bilingualism, as outlined in the literature.
It takes into account research using qualitative and quantitative methodologies and reviews the advantages and possible disadvantages of bilingualism in preschool children.

Paraphrasing this same article another interesting fact that is presents to us,
is that bilingual children tent to elaborate more detailed and concrete descriptions of a story while monolingual children narrate more condensed and crude versions of the same story.
To increase the validity of my ideas and my theory I would like to quote on the same article where it states “Subsequent research ( has indicated that bilingual children are better than monolingual children at judging the grammaticality of sentences that contained distracting semantic anomalies”
Yet another good example that encourage my theory in this same article is when it shows clearly indications of abstract and rhetorical understanding of concepts in bilingual children”
Hakuta, Kenji The other article that I used on my research ,mostly refers to the result of his experiments and the benefits that Multilanguage have proven to show in his results .
For instance paraphrasing, one of the most recurrent results point to the increase of new neuronal path ways that help prevent memory degeneration that happens naturally with ageing
On the other side this article also talk a lot about the importance of learning this in early stages of development where it’s easier for the children and the absorption and understating of information is at it’s peak.
To greater illustrate my point , I would like to direct quote this same article where its say’s “It is best to introduce them to different languages early on and not wait. Right from when they are babies if possible. But, you can introduce different languages at any time in the critical period of birth to puberty. It is not too late and their brain is still ripe to pick up languages.”

Connection Piece.

The counter part of what my theory is trying to prove , is that also several studies had showed that bilingualism might also have some disadvantages in the integral development of the students , in some cases the early mixture of languages might end up delaying the full understanding of ones own language .
For instance in an Article that I have previously review from Aprana Lyer she points out several disadvantages that should be take in consideration, for example she’s says that : The system of bilingual education demanded separate teachers and classrooms and believed in gradual integration into society by allowing children to receive education in their native language for a period of 3 or more years. Proponents of a single medium of instruction opposed bilingual education since they believed that separate teachers and classrooms would widen the already existing gap between citizens and immigrants.
What this means briefly is that the fact that minorities or immigrants receive classes on their own language might increase the gap between the citizens and the minorities , also Aprana in her article points out , other problems with bilingualism for the education system for example the lack of classrooms , she arguments that there is a dearth of classrooms that can accommodate students who require instructions in both English and their native language. Students are expected to sit together in one class regardless of their age and the variations in the required level of education. This poses a great problem for teachers who, in addition to being well versed in two languages, have to exhibit a certain level of comfort in handling different levels of education simultaneously. So even when there’s enough evidence in favor of bilingual education , like most thing in life there’s always a down side to thing , or better put there are implications that must be address, but even with all the disadvantages that might present on the process of transition to bilingual or multilingual education it’s very likely that even so bilingual education should be taken more seriously because of all the multiple advantages that might provide to students on early stages of their education. :)