How Can Your Child Benefit from the Bilingual Edge?

View this email in your browser How Can Your Child Benefit from the Bilingual  Edge? For children, advanced knowledge of two languages has been shown to result in specific brain benefits, like: Enhanced creativity and flexibility,  Increased test scores,  Improved literacy skills, as well as social advantages such as greater cross-cultural understanding, adaptability, and  Increased competitiveness on the job market down the line.  KNOWING TWO LANGUAGES GIVES CHILDREN A COGNITIVE EDGE Many of us intuitively grasp that knowing more than one language makes us smarter in some way. In what areas do bilinguals have an edge?  First, people with advanced knowledge of more than one language seem to be more creative. How is creativity measured, you may be wondering—it seems like a pretty abstract concept. Well, most frequently by asking questions like: “How many ways could you use an empty water bottle?” On these sorts of tests, bilinguals tend to produce more answers and also more creative answers. For instance, for the water bottle question, most of us would come up with the obvious answer (“filling it with water”), but bilinguals are more likely to come up with other answers too, like “filling it with sand and making a paperweight.”  So creativity and flexibility are good, but what else does being bilingual buy you? Most of the cognitive advantages stem from bilinguals’ greater metalinguistic awareness, which means awareness of language as an object or system. Metalinguistic awareness is what allows us to appreciate many types of jokes, puns, and metaphors. This sounds a bit abstract, but metalinguistic awareness is also linked to important academic skills, including learning to read... LEARNING ANOTHER LANGUAGE ENHANCES CROSS-CULTURAL UNDERSTANDING As many of us know from experience, it’s hard to understand a culture without knowing the language of that culture. And research tells us when children learn a second language they are more likely to have positive attitudes toward speakers of that language. Second language learning programs have positive effects on cross-cultural attitudes and behaviors… With multiculturalism increasing in today’s global society, greater cross-cultural understanding and sensitivity is a critically important skill to give to our children, and this can be achieved through language! Building Friendships Across Language Lines Raising your child to be bilingual potentially impacts not only your child’s individual success and happiness but also the greater community. After all, one out of five households in the United States uses a language other than English, and that number is growing each year! Many of the qualities we value for our children, such as awareness and understanding of other people and cultures, the ability to make friendships across social lines, and the skills necessary for creative problem-solving, in fact are cultivated by bilingualism. 4. KNOWING MORE THAN ONE LANGUAGE ENRICHES FAMILY LIFE, CULTURE, AND COMMUNICATION ...Being bilingual is often felt to be critical to maintaining family connections and cultural traditions. (A heritage language is one that has been spoken by previous generations and that often has some special meaning for the family.) Many parents deeply value maintaining this cultural link for their children. And many parents also grasp the importance of the second, or heritage, language as central to maintaining cultural traditions. It’s hard for children to understand or even sit still, much less participate, in an event if they don’t understand the language (and, of course, it’s sometimes a challenge even if they do!). Still, other parents see knowledge of their heritage language as an important source of pride and self-esteem for their child. They are right! There’s a lot of research evidence that children do best in school—and best in life overall—when they have a strong sense of identity and of where they come from. Many researchers have concluded that immigrant groups to the United States who maintained their cultural heritage at home—for instance, some Chinese and Indian groups—also provided their children with the strength to face challenges, and sometimes inequalities, at school. In contrast, total assimilation or loss of cultural heritage can lead to less successful outcomes at school. Of course, for many parents, speaking the family’s heritage language is not so much about the need to communicate with others immediately around them, but rather about the need to know who they are and where they came from, to provide the family with a sense of heritage and to foster closeness between parents and children. 5. BILINGUALISM PROVIDES AN EDUCATIONAL AND CAREER EDGE In today’s competitive academic environment, we’re all looking to give our children that additional edge. Meanwhile, global developments continue to increase the demand for bilingual professionals. Why not prepare our children for this from the get-go? If your children are still in diapers, the job market probably seems pretty far off. Still, it’s worth keeping in mind that bilingual or multilingual professionals are increasingly in demand. It can be motivating both for parents and teens to know that knowledge of more than one language pays off in the job market. This trend is only likely to intensify. For example, more than 75 percent of U.S. firms already face international competition, and businesses are increasingly in need of bilingual individuals to help them stay competitive. According to some experts, the language differential payoff (the higher rate of pay for bilinguals over monolinguals) is as much as 5 to 20 percent. In thinking about your children’s futures, it’s no sillier to consider your children’s linguistic capabilities than their literacy levels or math skills! All three are important for success in today’s world. Information was taken from:  The Bilingual Edge: Why, When, and How to Teach Your Child a Second Language. Kendall King, Alison Mackey VISIT OUR STORE You may be interested in distributing, making moms groups for coaching, joining the program as a professional, or simply exchanging services for my products. I am open to all possibilities.  Please contact me directly.  CeFerrero - CeGuerrero