multilingual – Educational Sociolinguistics

The Benefits of Being Bilinguals

Sabrina Chang

Edwards (2004: 7) states that “Everyone is bilingual….there is no one in the world (no adult, anyway) who does not know at least a few words in languages other than their maternal variety.” Why do people strive to become bilinguals in present days? In Asian countries, parents tend to let their children learn English as early as they can. They do not want their children to fall behind others due to the lack of language learning experiences. So, I want to talk about the benefits of being bilingual.

If you happen to speak some terms in other languages, chances are, you belong to the world’s bilingual and multilingual majority. Being a bilingual has several benefits. First, being a bilingual means you can travel more easily. You might encounter some challenges or problems while travelling which can be solved by communicating with others. Second, by being bilingual, your brain will be healthier than those who are monolingual. In the video that I have posted below, it states that being multilingual gives your brain some remarkable advantages. It can also help delay the onset of diseases like Alzheimer’s and dementia by as much as five years. Moreover, getting to know various languages can broaden your horizons by making you more open-minded. When we learn a language, we would also learn about the country’s culture and customs which is highly beneficial if we are heading to that country in the future. Last but not least, the advantage of being a bilingual also includes other benefits for brains. It reinforces the executive function, problem solving ability, and the function of switching between tasks of the brain. Even if you didn’t learn a second language at a young age, it is never too late to learn a language in this modern world.

For me, being a bilingual indeed brings a lot of advantages to my life. Since I was little, I was immersed in a bilingual environment. Learning a language is not a difficult task when it happens at a young age which is related to the critical period. I admit that being a bilingual increases my self-esteem and the confidence of communicating with others. We cannot deny that learning an L2 in the critical period is the best situation due to the flexibility of children’s brains, so that’s why parents are trying to let children become bilinguals as soon as they can. Therefore, I definitely agree with having children learn an L2 at a young age. Do you agree with the benefits that I have mentioned above? What is your language learning experience? Please share your thoughts with me!

The Benefits of a Bilingual Brain

References:

Nicholas, H., & Starks, D. (2014). Language education and applied linguistics: Bridging the two fields. New York: Routledge.

Treating Language as a Strength: The Benefits of Bilingualism

Multilinguals: More options, more concerns?

Yating Xu

If the word “multilingual” is defined as “being able to use several languages especially with equal fluency”, then I have to admit that I’m not a multilingual in the strict sense. I grew up in China, Mandarin is my native language, and I’ve been learning English since primary school, though still not being able to achieve a native-like proficiency, for sure the time is long enough for me to be equipped with adequate language skills to survive in Montreal.

In the past year, the experience of studying and living in Montreal offered me a lot of opportunities to be exposed to an environment where the conversation flows with diverse languages, as well as the chances to get acquainted with a number of REAL multilinguals. By talking with them, listening to and being a part of their conversations, I have witnessed and observed some fascinating moments about these multilinguals and their language choices, and most importantly, the respect and inclusiveness I felt when being around with them.

The advantages of being multilingual

Fangzhe

On my last trip to Cuba, I was struck when the tour guide on the bus was introducing the whole trip to us in very fluent English, French and Spanish. He explained everything in all three languages, in an order based on the number of people who can only understand a certain language. He seemed to have no troubles traveling through these three languages. And with the ability to entertain his target audience in each language, he gained an abundance of tips at the end of the trip.

I was surprised because in China, normally mastering English, a language most people learn since primary school, is not common and can be regarded as a great attribute. However, the first Cuban guy I met can speak three different languages in such a good way. Does it mean that in Cuba, even to be a tour guide, there is a such demanding requirement of being multilingual, or most people there actually are good multilingual speakers?

My round, red face.

Chris

Sometimes I wish I was a trim, proper looking chap from the European continent, who could be a native speaker of any number of languages. The type where people paused and wondered, “I wonder what language he speaks ? Could it be French, German, Portuguese ? Could it be Dutch ?” I wish there was something ambiguous about my appearance that didn’t shout my native language from a mountain top. However, I’m a burly, ginger bearded man (the unfortunate genetic makeup of someone from Northern England), whose round, red face screams SPEAK TO ME IN ENGLISH. Since the majority of native English speakers don’t speak a second language, it’s fair to look at me and think I don’t either. Except that I do. I grew up speaking French, and I’ve spent years learning Spanish.

A Father’s Language Anxiety

Ethan – second blog post

I’ve just read some wonderful blog posts like Hsinhua’s and it seems the buzz word in our recent discussion is language anxiety. I want to talk more about it, but not like Lauren Godfrey-Smith who talks about her own experience as a French learner and speaker in Montreal.

I would like to talk about language anxiety from a parent’s perspective. It might be difficult for those who have never had the experience of L2 learning or raising a baby to make sense of the meaning of ‘a parent’s anxiety for his child language learning’. Well, I might have coined this term, but I believe I’m not the first to be concerned about it.

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Positives and negatives of language learning

Sophia G

Language is a tricky thing. On one hand, it is given to us freely; on the other, we really have no choice in the language that we are given. Some of us are even gifted with multilingual families and learn many languages, others are gifted a small snapshot of one language.

Language and the composition of a person’s languages can largely impact their whole life. When asked to look at the positives and negatives of my language learning and my language composition, it came out strangely negative. I found this quite sad. First, let’s start out by explaining my language composition.

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My accent is obviously not British or Australian!

Hi, my name is Samuel Marticotte.

I grew up in on the north-shore of Quebec, speaking French in an area where it is spoken by over 90% of the population. As I grew up, I picked up some English in school, in video games, on the internet, but only really learned it later when I started working in the navy in Halifax, N-S and Victoria, B-C. After a year of software engineering, I stopped my studies to go to Japan, where I became somewhat fluent in Japanese over the course of nine months; travelling, working in a restaurant and helping an elderly woman with her farm work. When I came back to university, I changed program for one in which I could study two modern languages. I decided to keep studying Japanese and chose Russian as a second language. On my second year, I did a nine-month exchange program in Russia where I had the occasion to improve my reading and listening abilities. Upon my return I was not perfectly fluent orally, but I could read novels and translate literature from French or English. Upon completion of my B.A and certificate in Russian Studies, I was chosen to participate in the JET program. I left for Japan and taught in an elementary school for two years. In Japan, I worked in Japanese, every week explaining to my coworkers lesson plans, and engaged with friends and the local community, sometimes in the local dialect (Kansai-ben), sometimes in standard “Tokyo” Japanese, a more polite variety of the language. When I returned to Canada, I moved to Montreal and started the M.A. in second language education I’m actually in. Being at McGill is an interesting experience, because it is my first long-term experience in an “English community” in Canada.

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