Kids Are Our Future

I speak three languages and my 4-year-old daughter is learning the third language now since my husband’s and my families speaking two different languages, and we live here U.S, my daughter speaks English in her preschool. I definitely know there are some advantages for being multi-language speakers as I am experiencing and taking the advantage of it, however, I am also little worried about my kids, what if they have lower competence on English compared with those kids only speak English, since those kids spend all of their time speaking, reading, writing English while my kids are switching among the three languages whenever they need.

Many of my friends who have immigrants’ families just like me; some of them insist on their kids to be bilingual; while others think that bilingual speakers can not concentrate on one and turns out that kids can not excel at any one of the languages. With large immigrant populations on the increase in many countries, many parents are faced with raising a bilingual or trilingual child. Parents may have strong feelings about maintaining their language and culture, at the same time, fear that they are taking a risk with their child’s language development by exposing him or her to two languages or more languages. Is a second language or a third language beneficial to your young child? What are the advantages? What are the disadvantages? Can we reach a conclusion whether the advantages over weigh the disadvantages? More and more parents have these questions, which are waiting to be answered.

I did some research on multilingualism. In the next several posts, I would like to discuss about it and share with all of you and would like to hear your thoughts, your experience and looking forward to reading your comments.

The advantages of being multilingual

Let’s summarize the advantages of being multilingual first.

The world we live contains a diversity of populations speaking in various languages. Because of increasing immigration, international commerce, tourism, business, and modern technology, we live in a multilingual multicultural global society. The obvious benefit of learning a second, or a third or more languages is we can understand more culture and communicate with more people who speak different languages, and help more people therefore may have more job and business opportunities.

According to studies, it has been shown that learning a second language results in students achieving greater divergent thinking, creativity, and cognitive development compared to those who are monolingual. A number of studies have also shown that when students learn a second language they have a tendency of outscoring those who are proficient in only a single language on tests of nonverbal and verbal intelligence. In addition, their academic skills such as their abilities in mathematics, writing, and reading are enhanced.

Learning a second language, therefore, can not only challenge our mind, but also enrich our soul by communicating and understanding more cultures and more people. Therefore, we can get along well with more people, enjoy more efficient team work, help more people and gain more fulfillment and success.

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