How can Bilingualism socially and cognitively benefit children - Research Paper Example

Bilingualism has always been a favorite subject of researchers, educators and policy makers in aspects of the social, cognitive, developmental and learning capabilities that are affected by the bilingual abilities of an individual. It had long been considered by many scholars that bilingualism serves as a barrier to the learning abilities and literacy development of children. They had believed for a long time that bilingualism served as a hindrance and children who were monolingual showed better development and learning abilities as compared to the bilinguals.

However, the opinions regarding bilingualism have changed drastically as compared to the notions and myths that prevailed throughout most of the 20th century (Bhattacharjee 2012). Although the brain has to handle both the languages and it might obstruct the development of one lingual capability as compared to other, but the researchers are bringing out the positive picture of this scenario. It is popularly believed now that bilingualism promotes the cognitive function of children and also enhances their social capabilities in various aspects.

Bilingualism is a norm around the world and millions of people are familiar with more than one language and also use them in their everyday lives. However, as mentioned earlier, bilingualism has been associated with lack of learning abilities and lagging behind as compared to the monolinguals. Skills like music and mathematics are considered to strengthen the brain’s function and learning abilities, however, language is considered as something “that occupies mental space” (Ng & Wigglesworth 2007).

It had been considered that the brain only has a finite amount of space for the languages and too much acquisition with various languages causes confusion, lagging behind and slow learning abilities. It was considered that bilingualism has detrimental effects on cognitive abilities of children.