LITTLE PIM BLOG
Bilingual Kids in the News!
Last week, our friend Ana Flores of SpanglishBaby made an appearance on NBC's Today Show to talk about raising bilingual kids and the importance of starting early. #BilingualKids swiftly became a hot topic on twitter, and we want to keep the conversation going. First, watch the video in which Ana and Columbia professor Erika Levy make the case for bilingual kids. Note, especially, how adamantly professor Levy dispels the myth that bilingual children start speaking later than monolingual children – good news for all!
Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
If you'd like to continue to explore the topic of bilingual kids in the news, here are two informative articles from the last two weeks.
- This Huffington Post piece by Dr. Gail Gross delves into the effects language can have on babies before they are born. Even in the womb, babies can begin to distinguish their mothers' voices and languages!
- And this recent article in TIME Magazine also reveals how different languages affect the way children process and analyze information. The more languages they learn how to balance, the more analytical tools they have!
4 Eye-opening Articles on Foreign Language Learning
Every week we find ourselves geeking out over all the amazing new information about foreign language learning that we find on the internet. If you’re like us (and we think you might be since… well… here you are), you might sometimes find this wealth of information a little overwhelming. Not to worry, friends! Little Pim is here to help! Each week, we’ll cull the internet for our favorite language (and panda) related articles. This week, for your reading pleasure, four articles about the way language works inside the human brain:
- Your Mind on Language: How Bilingualism Boosts Your Brain. The title of this HuffPo blog post might say it all, but it’s a great read for anyone who wants to read about the science of language without having to wade through all the science-ese. Dan Roitman defines common scientific vocabulary associated with the study of language and also breaks down the way the brain processes language.
- Does Your Language Shape How You Think? You might have seen this piece in the New York Times Magazine! As it turns out, our first language may affect the way we formulate thoughts.
- EastEnders Effect: Watching TV Can Change Your Accent. A curious phenomenon, indeed! The cockney accent (‘ello guvna!) that features prominently in the UK soap opera EastEnders has been slowly sculpting and altering the way the Scottish accent sounds.
- Bilingualism Is Yoga for the Brain. A quick recap on the importance of starting early!
Until next time, read on!
Who’s the Smartest Person in the Room? The Answer May Surprise You.
See those babies cooing in the corner? According to a recent Time Magazine article, they’re the best linguists in the room. Babies are born, Time’s Jeffrey Kluger says, with the inherent ability to speak and understand the world’s 6,800 languages, and that babies, and then children, are able to continue to easily learn multiple languages up into early grammar school. Kluger goes on to say that later in life, having gained these language abilities as babies and children, multilingual adults “are better at reasoning, at multitasking, at grasping and reconciling conflicting ideas. They work faster and expend less energy doing so, and as they age, they retain their cognitive faculties longer, delaying the onset of dementia and even full-blown Alzheimer's disease.”
Read the full, fascinating story, here.
Industries are struggling to find bilingual experts. Speaking a Spanish is becoming a big advantage.
The Huffington Post wrote this article on why speaking English is no longer enough. The article is about how "industries are adapting to the growing Spanish speaking population in the US. Did you know there were more than 31,000 job oportunities that needed bilingual expertise as a core competancy. Huffington Post Article "Why Learning English is No Longer Enough"
The Little Prince: Growing Roots
Chapter 18 of The Little Prince is as rich with meaning as chapters one and three. My blog series featuring the iconic French children's book has allowed me to explore the text with new eyes. The passage below describes a melancholy exchange between the Little Prince and a flower. The Little Prince, always full of questions, wants to know where all the people are. The flower's answer is simple: "The wind blows them away. They have no roots...".
In 2007 the U.S. census reported that the average American will move 11.7 times in their lifetime. To most a passport full of colorful stamps is a most coveted possession. My children have both visited France with me and I look forward to more trips in the future.
Would the flower in The Little Prince look down on us? I think not. The roots that come to mind when the flower speaks are those of personal conviction. One's truth. What are your values? What do you stand for? What truths do you hold dear? Those are our roots.
Thomas Kempis, a medival monk, once said, "Wherever you go, you will always bear yourself about with you, and so you will always find yourself." Travel the world, learn languages, eat exotic foods but remember to do deeply rooted in who you are.
Le Petit Prince: Chapter 18 (en Français)
Le petit prince traversa le désert et ne rencontra qu'une fleur. Une fleur à trois pétales, une fleur de rien du tout...
"Bonjour," dit le petit prince.
"Bonjour" dit la fleur.
"Où sont les hommes ?" demanda poliment le petit prince.
La fleur, un jour, avait vu passer une caravane:
"Les hommes ? Il en existe, je crois, six ou sept. Je les ai aperçus il y a des années. Mais on ne sait jamais où les trouver. Le vent les promène. Ils manquent de racines, ça les gêne beaucoup."
"Adieu, fit le petit prince."
"Adieu, dit la fleur."
The Little Prince: Chapter 18 (in English)
The little prince crossed the desert and met with only one flower. It was a flower with three petals, a flower of no account at all.
"Good morning," said the little prince.
"Good morning," said the flower.
"Where are the men?" the little prince asked, politely.
The flower had once seen a caravan passing.
"Men?" she echoed. "I think there are six or seven of them in existence. I saw them, several years ago. But one never knows where to find them. The wind blows them away. They have no roots, and that makes their life very difficult."
"Goodbye," said the little prince.
"Goodbye," said the flower.
Why Bilinguals Are Smarter
In case you haven't already seen it, there's a great article from the New York Times about all the benefits of bilingualism
"Speaking two languages rather than just one has obvious practical benefits in an increasingly globalized world. But in recent years, scientists have begun to show that the advantages of bilingualism are even more fundamental than being able to converse with a wider range of people. Being bilingual, it turns out, makes you smarter. It can have a profound effect on your brain, improving cognitive skills not related to language and even shielding against dementia in old age"
Bilingual Panel
Little Pim was proud to co-host a Bilingual Education Panel in New York City in November 2011 with Big City Moms and Kidville, featuring some of the most knowledgeable educators. Watch this 4 minute video to see the highlights. Enjoy, and let us know if you have any questions of your own.
Julia Pimsleur Levine
Hearing Bilingual - the benefits of foreign language learning for young kids
The New York Times published an article entitled: "Hearing Bilingual: How Babies Tell Language Apart." The demand for foreign language education programs is growing among parents who realize both the cognitive and social benefits of their children growing up multilingual. In a new study, researchers at the University of Washington measured the electrical brain responses of "monolingual" infants (those from homes where one language is was being spoken) against those from bilingual households. The New York Times reported on the results:
"...the researchers found that at 6 months, the monolingual infants could discriminate between phonetic sounds, whether they were uttered in the language they were used to hearing or in another language not spoken in their homes. By 10 to 12 months, however, monolingual babies were no longer detecting sounds in the second language, only in the language they usually heard."
Over the past decade, Dr Ellen Bialystok, a distinguished research Professor of Psychology at York University in Toronto, has shown that bilingual children develop crucial skills in addition to their double vocabularies, learning different ways to solve logic problems or to handle multitasking, skills that are often considered part of the brain’s so-called executive function.
These higher-level cognitive abilities are localized to the frontal and prefrontal cortex in the brain. “Overwhelmingly, children who are bilingual from early on have precocious development of executive function,” Dr. Bialystok said.
Little Pim allows families, even families who are not bilingual, to do this easily.
Read the entire article: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/11/health/views/11klass.html?_r=1&smid=fb-nytimes
Were you exposed to multiple languages as a child? We'd love to hear your stories!
Little Pim on the Huffington Post
Little Pim was recently mentioned in an article on the Huffington Post about the benefits of introducing young children to a second language. "Among toddlers as young as 2 years, bilingual youngsters outscored their monolingual counterparts in the area known as “executive functioning.” To toddlers, this comes down to sorting shapes, but for older kids and adults, executive functioning includes important mental tasks such as planning, strategizing, organizing and goal-setting."
Click here to read the full article.
The benefits of bilingualism - Dr Bialystok
Here at Little Pim, we’re well versed in the benefits of foreign language learning. We know just how important it is for a child’s early development, the advantages multilinguals have in reading, math and social skills, and how it improves memory overall. Journalist Claudia Dreifus’s excellent interview with Dr. Ellen Bialystok serves as a good reminder of just how critical language learning can be for young minds. Printed in the New York Times Science section this week, Dr. Bialystok’s interview is currently the most emailed article on NYTimes.com, and makes for a truly fascinating read.
Dr. Bialystok is a leading psychology professor, whose main academic focus is bilingualism and its effect on language and cognitive development in children. She has received many prestigious awards for her research, including the Killam Prize and the Pimsleur Award for Foreign Language Education (named for my late father, Dr. Paul Pimsleur).
I’ve highlighted a few of Dr. Bialystok’s main points she made in this week’s New York Times piece:
As we did our research, you could see there was a big difference in the way monolingual and bilingual children processed language. We found that if you gave 5- and 6-year-olds language problems to solve, monolingual and bilingual children knew, pretty much, the same amount of language.
But on one question, there was a difference. We asked all the children if a certain illogical sentence was grammatically correct: “Apples grow on noses.” The monolingual children couldn’t answer. They’d say, “That’s silly” and they’d stall. But the bilingual children would say, in their own words, “It’s silly, but it’s grammatically correct.” The bilinguals, we found, manifested a cognitive system with the ability to attend to important information and ignore the less important.
…There’s a system in your brain, the executive control system. It’s a general manager. Its job is to keep you focused on what is relevant, while ignoring distractions. It’s what makes it possible for you to hold two different things in your mind at one time and switch between them.
If you have two languages and you use them regularly, the way the brain’s networks work is that every time you speak, both languages pop up and the executive control system has to sort through everything and attend to what’s relevant in the moment. Therefore the bilinguals use that system more, and it’s that regular use that makes that system more efficient.
Q. One would think bilingualism might help with multitasking — does it?
A. Yes, multitasking is one of the things the executive control system handles. We wondered, “Are bilinguals better at multitasking?” So we put monolinguals and bilinguals into a driving simulator. Through headphones, we gave them extra tasks to do — as if they were driving and talking on cellphones. We then measured how much worse their driving got. Now, everybody’s driving got worse. But the bilinguals, their driving didn’t drop as much. Because adding on another task while trying to concentrate on a driving problem, that’s what bilingualism gives you — though I wouldn’t advise doing this.
Not convinced yet? There is more!
On average, the bilinguals showed Alzheimer’s symptoms five or six years later than those who spoke only one language.”
You can read the piece in its entirety here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/31/science/31conversation.html
I also recommend Dr. Bialystok’s “Language Processing in Bilingual Children” if you’re interested in delving into her research, which covers many of her discoveries in more depth:
Little Pim parents are always telling me of the benefits of foreign language learning for their children – benefits that extend beyond the obvious ability to communicate in another language. I’d love to hear your thoughts and observations about how introducing your child to another language has affected their early development. I know that my son had an easier time recognizing “big words” in English because he could recognize the French root in words like “chagrin” (which means sad in French) or “collage” (from the French word colle, which means glue). He is also accustomed to absorbing vocabulary words, which has improved his concentration and ability to stick with challenging mental tasks. What have you seen in your kids?
