THE BENEFITS OF BEING BILINGUAL

Brave Decision

• takes time
• requires skills
• takes patience

Advantages

• Intellectual benefits.
• Advanced horizon and brain function.
• Professional benefits.

1. Intellectual benefits

• strengthen first language skills.
• build confidence.
• have better cognitive control which includes inhibition, attention, goal maintenance, and task switching.

According to Hernandez et al. (2015),
The claim that bilinguals have an advantage in cognitive control, which includes
inhibition, attention, goal maintenance, and task switching has become more and more controversial in recent years (as cited in Dunabeitia et al., 2014). The original findings by a number of research studies with different age groups of bilinguals outperforming monolinguals across a variety of cognitive control tasks (as cited in Bialystok, 2006, Bialystok et al., 2004,Bialystok et al., 2008 and Costa et al., 2008) have come into question. (p.110)

2a. Brain fitness

Bilingual adults can improve their memory by learning the second language so that they can become old slower.
They also have lower probabilities of acquiring mental diseases like Alzheimer’s disease.

Bilingual children’s memory abilities are generally better than monolingual children.

2b. Open Eyes

Cultural growth advantages

• enlightened international knowledge,
• changing opinions about other countries,
• changing opinions about the motherland,
• in-depth exposure to other cultures

3. Professional benefits ---improved career development

References
1. Blom, E., Küntay A.C., Messer M., Verhagen J. & Leseman P. (2014). The benefits of being bilingual: Working memory in bilingual Turkish–Dutch children. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology. 128, 105-119. doi:10.1016/j.jecp.2014.06.007 . Retrieved from http://www.sciencedirect.com.eztest.ocls.ca/science/article/pii/S0022096514...?

2.Costello, J. (2015). Students' Stories of Studying Abroad: Reflections upon Return. Journal of International Students, 5 (1), 50-59. Retrieved from
http://www.eric.ed.gov/contentdelivery/servlet/ERICServlet?accno=EJ1052834

References
3. Hernandez A. E., Greene M.R., Vaughn K. A., Francis D. J. & Grigorenko E. L. (2015). Beyond the bilingual advantage: The potential role of genes and environment on the development of cognitive control. Journal of Neurolinguistics. 35, 109-119. doi:10.1016/j.jneuroling.2015.04.002. Retrieved from http://www.sciencedirect.com.eztest.ocls.ca/science/article/pii/S0911604415...
4. Prior A. & Macwhinney B. (2010). A bilingual advantage in task switching. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition. 13(2), 253-262. Retrieved from
http://journals2.scholarsportal.info.proxy.lib.uwaterloo.ca/pdf/13667289/v1...

Thank You