Parlez Vous Francais? It Might Boost Brain Power on National Public Radio

Ever wish you had studied a little harder in your high school French or Spanish class? According to a recent New York Times article, being bilingual has benefits that extend well beyond language skills. Guest host Jacki Lyden explores this issue with Ellen Bialystock, professor of psychology at York University.

....Language has been a controversial subject for some time. There have been many pushes for English-only education and new stories about students getting in trouble for speaking a second language in school. And then there are parents who specifically seek out a school because they encourage fluency in multiple languages at very young ages.

So a recent New York Times article called "Why Bilinguals Are Smarter" caught our attention. It cited a number of studies that indicate that bilingualism can affect a person in many different ways. Joining us to talk about this is one of the researchers who's referenced in the article, Ellen Bialystok. She's a distinguished research professor in the department of psychology at York University in Toronto and she's done extensive research on the effects of bilingualism.

Click here to listen to this interview or read the transcript.

March 26, 2012

Parlez Vous Francais? It Might Boost Brain Power on National Public Radio

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Permalink Reply by Pascale Heuze on March 27, 2012 at 1:34pm

Parlez-vous Français or Parlez-vous Espagnol or Portugais ?

It's a very useful point of view for starting learning a foreign language at a very young age ! I recently read a very interesting article about how it'd be wiser for a child to start learning the most difficult language in the prepschool...

Pascale

Paris Version à la Française

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Permalink Reply by Philippe Bodi on March 27, 2012 at 2:13pm

Pascale, what you said is in line with Noam Chomski's work. According to him, when we are born,we have already all the neural connections for any language, but these connections disappear by the age of 2-3 because we get concentrated on one single language...

Philippe

Seattle Central Community College

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Permalink Reply by Etiquette Expert NYC on March 27, 2012 at 2:44pm

Fantastic article! Thanks for sharing. Every parent and educator needs to read it if they want their children to have a better Executive Function. Language learning, social skills training, etiquette skills -- all these learning activities will have a positive impact on child's brain development.

For your reading pleasure, please read also our latest article about Executive Function:

http://www.etiquetteoutreach.com/blog_new-york-etiquette-guide/bid/...

Etiquette Expert New York

www.etiquetteoutreach.com