Bilingual education helps students effectively connect with people of different cultures and backgrounds, increasing their ability to empathize with others and promoting emotional intelligence.
Essentially, they are learning how to express themselves in new ways: how to form sentences, which words to use, and how to be clearly understood by their audience. They will also gain confidence in their ability to speak in public, whether that's in their second language or their first.
Bilingualism strengthens cognitive abilities - bilingual people tend to be more creative and flexible. They can be more open-minded, and they also find it easier to focus on a variety of tasks simultaneously. And being able to speak two languages helps in other ways too...
Bilingual education has many cognitive benefits. Children that know a second language perform better in tasks that call for creative thinking, pattern recognition and problem solving. Young learners develop greater linguistic awareness and a more complex understanding of their native language.
Being bilingual can improve a person's multitasking skills, attention control, problem solving and creativity as it promotes outside-the-box thinking. It can also help improve your memory – handy when shopping and remembering people's names!
Being multilingual or bilingual often helps children learn at school because it helps them with problem-solving, multitasking, creativity and flexible thinking. These children can also have good focus.
The goal of bilingual education programs shall be to enable English language learners to become competent in listening, speaking, reading, and writing in the English language through the development of literacy and academic skills in the primary language and English.
Criticism of bilingual education has grown as parents and numerous objective analyses have shown it was ineffective, kept students too long in Spanish-only classes, and slowed the learning of English and assimilation into American society.
According to scientific studies, bilingual children are better able to focus, plan, prioritize and make decisions. As children get older they tend to score higher on cognitive tests and possess more effective communication skills. Many studies have also found that bilingualism can also help prevent dementia in old age.
On the other hand, some of the disadvantages of bilingualism are an apparent delay in language acquisition; interference between the two phonological, lexical, and grammatical systems; and a possible decrease in vocabulary in both languages.
One disadvantage of being bilingual is that bilingual and multilingual speakers have a smaller vocabulary in the languages they speak than monolingual speakers. In addition to this, the time taken for bilingual speakers to retrieve words when thinking is slower than for a monolingual speaker.
Principles of The Bilingual Method
The understanding of words and sentences in foreign languages can be made easier by the use of mother tongue. There is no need to create artificial situations for explaining the meaning of words and sentences of the target language.
Bilingual people enjoy advantages: they have enriched cognitive control, it's likely that they have improved metalinguistic awareness, as well as better memory, visual-spatial skills and even creativity. There are also social benefits from being bilingual.
For us, bilingual education means that learners study typical school subjects – for example, maths or geography – through an additional language (such as English) and some subjects through their first language, or they may study the same subject through two languages.
Two-way immersion is a unique kind of language education because it involves two languages in two ways: Two languages are used for instruction, and two groups of students are involved—students who are native English speakers and students from an- other language background, most often Spanish.
Theories of Bilingual Education The threshold theory: This theory was propounded by Jim Cummins in 1976. It is hinged on the levels of language competence needed to avoid negative cognitive effects and/or to attain cognitive advantages. Age appropriateness for language learning is emphasized here.
Academic Advantage
Bilingual children may also have an advantage in school, including with literacy. "Studies have shown that when a child learns a second language," says Denzer, "they show accelerated progress when learning to read compared with monolingual peers."
Students who spoke English and another language fluently before entering school performed even better, with 72.7% meeting or exceeding the standard.
Studies have shown there are many additional benefits to the exposure of a second language in early childhood beyond the acquisition of the language itself. Bilingual children have demonstrated increased problem solving abilities, better working memory and improved capacity for abstract thinking, among other benefits.
Besides having more chances of landing a good job or advancing in your career, learning a second language can also give you an insight into other cultures. You will be more prepared and confident to travel the world and explore other people's ways of living. Lack of integration is a real problem for most countries.