The Benefits of a Bilingual Brain

understanding more than one language makes it easier to navigate the world and interact with other people but it's the cognitive effects of language acquisition what it does to the brain that's truly extraordinary learning how to think and communicate in another language gives our brains a powerful cognitive workout bilingual brains are more developed in areas that organize and process speech the motor cortex which controls the lips and mouth the vernicas area where the brain organizes language for active speech the broca's area where language sounds are processed and the auditory cortex where auditory stimuli is received research

shows that bilingual students enjoy better academic outcomes in the classroom they demonstrate increased reading comprehension better long-term memory and find it easier to apply logic in 2004 psychologists ellen bialystock and michelle martin rhee conducted an experiment they invited two groups of young people one monolingual one bilingual to divide a collection of objects by shape and color and found that those who could speak a second language had greater success than those who couldn't bialystoc's research also showed that the brains of bilingual adults are more resistant to alzheimer's and other forms of dementia the dual language learners

of today are more likely to be the global citizens of tomorrow studies have compared the attitudes of bilingual and monolingual elementary students towards spanish-speaking people and found that the former viewed them more positively by reading dual language texts students are exposed to other cultures and are more likely to value inclusivity and embrace diversity while dual language learners demonstrate increased levels of empathy because they're able to see things from multiple perspectives dual language immersion programs produce young people who are academically capable culturally inclusive and better equipped to thrive in all walks of life