Switching from one language to another while in a conversation can help children in problem solving and enhance creativity, researchers have claimed.
Researchers from the University of Strathclyde in the UK claim that bilingual children outperform children who speak only one language in problem-solving skills and creative thinking.
“Our study has found that it can have demonstrable benefits, not only in language but in arithmetic, problem solving and enabling children to think creatively,” lead author Dr Fraser Lauchlan said.
The study conducted with 121 children in Scotland and Sardinia- 62 of them bilingual- were set tasks in which they were asked to reproduce patterns of coloured blocks, to repeat orally a series of numbers, to give clear definitions of words and to resolve mentally a set of arithmetic problems. The tasks were all set in English or Italian and the children taking part were aged around nine.
It was observed that the bilingual children were significantly more successful in the tasks set for them. The Gaelic-speaking children were, in turn, more successful than the Sardinian speakers. More.
See: Business Standard
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Local time: 22:20
English to Bengali
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That is interesting! In India, children in cities have no choice but to learn 2 or more languages, English and a modern Indian language (both are part of school curriculum) plus Hindi, because it is the predominant language in all government communique and also in Bollywood movies, songs and other popular media.
United Kingdom
Local time: 16:50
Member (2007)
French to English
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In some cases perhaps, but in other cases children can get confused when it comes to writing in different languages.
Also, I would dispute that "bilingual children are more alert and creative" than non-bilingual ones. What are they using as a comparison to make this statement?
Cheers!
Liz Askew
Spain
Local time: 17:50
Member (2011)
Spanish to English
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I live in Catalonia, a Spanish autonomous region where children are brought up to be bilingual in Spanish and Catalan.
I'm afraid I don't consider the children to be more alert and creative. I would even go as far as to say that their progress at school is sometimes hindered.
Local time: 18:50
Romanian to English
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@Helena:
What is the language of study in those schools? I can imagine these children are hindered in their progress because the language they study in is not their real mother tongue. The situation is the same in Romania; Hungarian children here surely have worse grades at Romanian and other language-based fields (e.g. history).
However, creativity and alertness are not necessarily related to progress in school, IMO.
United Kingdom
Local time: 16:50
Hebrew to English
@Helena:
What is the language of study in those schools? I can imagine these children are hindered in their progress because the language they study in is not their real mother tongue. The situation is the same in Romania; Hungarian children here surely have worse grades at Romanian and other language-based fields (e.g. history).
However, creativity and alertness are not necessarily related to progress in school, IMO.
They aren't necessarily related to bilingualism either. I find these kinds of "studies" very dubious, a belief borne out in the hedging language they use:
"can help children", "can have demonstrable benefits", "could develop skills useful in other types of thinking".
I'd also like to know a lot more about their scientific method before I bought into such a bold claim as the one heading this thread.
Spain
Local time: 17:50
Member (2011)
Spanish to English
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I live in Catalonia, a Spanish autonomous region where children are brought up to be bilingual in Spanish and Catalan.
Annamarie, children study in Catalan and Spanish, depending on the subject. When they are in the playground, they use both languages. When I am sitting round the table at mealtimes with my family, we speak Spanish, Catalan and English, depending on who we're addressing. But I wouldn't say the younger members of my family were especially creative or alert.
I started teaching over thirty years ago and the children I have in my classes today are definitely not more creative or alert than the monolingual children I used to teach at the beginning.
However, I don't think language has anything to do with this fact. I think it's due to the change of lifestyle: young children go to the park with adults watching over them, they no longer play on their own outside or do errands for their parents. They play with adult supervision, which doesn't allow them to develop their creative skills.
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