Developmental benefits of learning two languages at once as a child

Abstract EN

Learning to speak two languages is just like any other skill.

It has been found that there are various and valuable benefits to being able to speak multiple languages.

Learning more than one language nourishes the brain and develops cognitive and social- emotional development, and the opportunities of successful learning.

It is now believed that constant demand to switch between languages leads to several cognitive advantages.

The present study focuses on the fact that an early stage of life is considered the best period of time to learn a foreign or a second language.

Research has found that children who experience two languages at an early childhood stage normally become native of both.

In related words, both bilingual adults and children have the ability to employ a distinguished executive functioning of the brain which assists them to shift attention, switch between tasks and find solutions for problems.

Also, they have been found to have increased metalinguistic skills which reveal their abilities to think about languages and understand how it works.

Class observation and interviews with teachers of kindergarten and primary school were conducted for data collection.

The data collected were analyzed using qualitative content analysis.

The findings indicated that students who received an English instruction before the age of six demonstrated higher language and cognitive ability than students who didn’t receive the English language instruction at the same age.