HOW BILINGUALISM IS GOOD FOR CHILD BRAINS
Early immersion into language a key to developing fluency, says hospital's expert
We'll never be smarter than we were when we were eight months old.
“That's when we were really, really smart,” says Dr. Shuvo Ghosh, director of the brain, development and behaviour department at the Montreal Children's Hospital. “Babies' brains figure it out.”
Incredible neuroplasticity is why the under-2 set is primed for learning language. When they learn more than one, they will reap cultural and academic benefits.
“Languages shape the way we think,” Ghosh says. You don't only have the words, “you've got the culture . ... It's something very special that we have in Montreal that sometimes we take for granted.”
The earliest possible exposure — infancy — to bilingualism or multilingualism is the ideal scenario for mastering languages, but there are many windows of opportunity as children grow, Ghosh says.
It is common for Quebec families to be made up of anglophones and francophones and many parents choose to split up language duties, with each caregiver speaking to the baby exclusively in one or the other.
That's one way to do it, Ghosh says, but explains it works well in Quebec because using one's mother tongue models correct grammar and pronunciation.
A child doesn't need two people to teach them multiple languages, as long as the caregiver sticks to one at a time. If they speak a little French and then later on a little bit of English, the baby will figure out how to differentiate between the two. Later on, they will even be able to see the distinction in the written word.
Those children might experience a slight delay in language development as they compartmentalize, but Ghosh says everything will even out because there is such a big window for their language explosion, between three and five years old, when kids stop using simple sentences and start talking non-stop.
Using language in which one is not fluent, or code-switching (using two languages in once sentence), will do more harm than good, as the child will have to relearn the rules, potentially after that time of extreme neuroplasticity.
“`I'm just going to go over to the dépanneur to grab quelque chose' is not necessarily a great model for a new language learner who is a baby. You might get away with it because of the vocabulary, but we do it with grammar markers, too,” Ghosh says. “There are a lot of allophones in Montreal.
Maybe they use Italian grammar but speak English and French. They might not be giving a proper grammatical map to the child.”
Families who want their kid to have an advantage but aren't fluent in a second language can teach vocabulary, Ghosh suggests. An ABC book with simple words will get them started.
Although there are no accurate studies yet, because a child can't have a functional MRI every day, Ghosh says researchers believe there are several processing centres, and once a person has mastered a language, they use their core language neurons. Early in life, language goes directly into the core neuronal network, like building a dictionary. The core is established during the language explosion.
After that point, language learning goes through layers of auditory processing and language centres before it reaches the core.
It is a longer process for children who learn later, such as when they enter school, because the information has to make its way through those layers into the core. Ghosh says some children have an affinity for language — they might be the kids who are good at mimicry and imitation. The children of newcomers who arrive in Canada speaking one language well and another partially might have an easier time learning the third. The more languages you learn, the easier it gets.
By high school, neuroplasticity isn't what it once was. That's why someone might say, “Oh, I took Spanish in Grade 9, but I forgot most of it.” Immersion is key.
Later learners will take more time to translate inside their head during a conversation. Some say you know you're fluent in a language when you dream in it. A whole new dictionary has been added to the core. Now there are two or three ways to express oneself and that does change how your brain works, Ghosh says. When people learn a third language, they might translate using their second language.
Scientifically, the benefits go well beyond expressing oneself better, says Ghosh, who speaks 11 languages. Bilingual and multilingual children might excel at efficient and innovative problem-solving.
“It allows you to interpret information in different ways. I think it's easier for you to interpret challenges like learning music or solving an equation with physics or geometry, visualizing things. It will improve overall scholastic abilities across the board, in every subject matter.
“And because the research is still ongoing, we're not sure yet exactly why that specific skill set translates so well to so many different areas. It is another reminder that the fundamental thing we as humans have learned is communicating well, much more than any other animal.”
It gets even better: Research has shown that multilingualism is a way to eliminate bias, because people who speak more than one language can understand a situation in more than one language.
“This goes beyond culture,” Ghosh says. “This is actually cognitive . ... Multilingual people are far less likely to get worked up about what somebody's hair or clothes look like. It's not necessarily because they've travelled, it's just that their brain allows them to interpret that information as not being essential or problematic.
“We don't know why our brains do that. But that's how we're wired.”