Tag: Bilingual

Posted in Website

Bilingual brain: Here is what happens when you flip between languages

Posted on by jannetteaguilera

This article was written by Kashira Gander and posted on September 9th, 2018. A study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences is described to explore the brain mechanisms that let bilinguals switch languages without effort. Graduate student Esti Blanco-Elorrietta says that switching languages means disengaging with one language and then engaging in another. That turning off the new language takes more effort than turning on a language. While the process looks easy, switching languages is a complicated process since it “involves the successful coordination of two independent language systems.” 21 volunteers where researched who where fluent in American Sign Language (ASL) where they would look at an image and saying its term in English and sign language at the same time while being filmed and their brain activity was measured. They saw that turning off a language needed cognitive control activity while the turning on the other language required almost no effort. Turning off is hardest when it is our dominant language causing a cognitive cost from stopping the language we are used to. Also, when speaking using the weaker language, we can add our dominant language is not hard at all. Thus we can “produce two languages for the price of one.” A limitation of the study was that it consisted of single word/ sign level not on the sentence or conversational level; however, this is progress in the field.

This is important to my guiding questions as it explains the cost on the brain when switching between two languages.

languages-stock
Image from the Article
Website Article Source:
Gander, K. (2018, September 10). Bilingual brain: Here's what happens when you flip between languages. Retrieved July 11, 2019, from Newsweek website: https://www.newsweek.com/ bilingual-brain-heres-what-happens-when-you-flip-between-languages-1111264
Posted in Article

New Discoveries from the Bilingual Brain and Mind across the Life Span: Implications for Education

Posted on by jannetteaguilera

The research article “New Discoveries from the Bilingual Brain and Main across the Life Span” by Laura-Ann Petitto was published in 2009. The article discusses neuroscience research with the goal to see if there are sensitive periods in the human development of language and reading and to understand the development and functions of brain tissue. The new field of educational neuroscience has emerged that allows us to analyze educational problems. This study shows how language research in educational neuroscience can help with educational policy and practice. Multiple studies were performed in this article. The first finding was that introducing a new language did not “damage” or “contaminate” the language first taught at home. The second finding was that bilingual babies have an “increased sensitivity to a greater range of phonetic contrasts, and extended developmental window of sensitive for perceiving these phonetic contrasts relative to monolingual children” (5). Another finding include that bilinguals who learned two languages by the age of, process the languages very similar to monolingual individuals. Bilinguals who learned a second language later “exhibit more bilateral activation, recruits more distributed frontal lobe tissue (including working memory and inhibitory areas) and recently exhibit more cognitive effort” (7).

This source is very useful in determining how the bilingual brain is different from the monolingual brain. It also shares how factors such as the age of language acquisition factors into how the brain is developed. These are essential to my guiding questions regarding the development of the bilingual brain. 

Article Source:
Petitto, L.-A. (2009). New Discoveries from the Bilingual Brain and Mind across the Life Span: Implications for Education. Mind, Brain, and Education, 3(4), 185–197. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eric&AN=EJ862467&site=eds-live
Posted in Blog

The Bilingual Advantage Blog

Posted on by jannetteaguilera

The Bilingual Advantage is a Blog made by Jessica Blin that contains various articles and other resources to explore regarding the bilingual language. Jessica Bin is French, Canadian, and Australian. She is also a bilingual educator at the French International School of Tokyo. Jessica has two sons. Along with her husband, they teach their sons English and French. She began the website “The Bilingual Advantage” to share her experiences with bilingualism and to guide others through that journey.

The bilingual portion of the website the following sources: “4 common mistakes parents make when raising a bilingual child,” “Are we wasting our time in language classes?,” “the importance of songs in language learning,” “So where are you from?” and “the benefits of the bilingual brain.” There are more resources than those just mentioned. If you click on “So where are you from?” you find a cartoon written in what looks like French and she translates the cartoon in English. She says” English Translation: “Where are you from?  Deep breath – So I was born in Paris but I lived in Bali for 2 years and then I lived in India for 2 1/2 years. I then lived 5 years in Moscow and  3 years in Helsinki then in Sweden, I also lived in Roma and then in England… and that’s it.” She then explains how she relates to this cartoon as she feels that she is from different places. If you click on the “the benefits of the bilingual brain,” you see a TedEd video that I had discussed in another post.

This blog is unique to my guiding questions since most articles and resources are related to the advantage of the bilingual brain. If you further explore the website, there are also resources for defining bilingualism, bilingual education and tips for bilingual parents. 

Blin, J. (2019). Blog. Retrieved July 11, 2019, from The bilingual advantage website:  http://thebilingualadvantage.com/blog/
Posted in Video

Bilingual and Monolingual Baby Brains Differ in Response to Language

Posted on by jannetteaguilera

This video shows a study between bilingual and monolingual babies in regards to brain activity. Eleven month old babies would hear the sounds of both Spanish and English. Bilingual babies (from bilingual families) would respond to both Spanish and English sounds while Monolingual babies (who only have heard English) only respond to English sounds. Thus the infant brain of eleven months specializes in language(s) being practiced around them. Also, bilinguals showed stronger responses in the prefrontal and orbitofrontal Cortex which are associated with executive function skills and are known to activate when bilingual adults switch between two languages. Thus babies are already practice switching between to languages.

Youtube Video

This study shows how the bilingual brain is different to that of the monolingual brain in terms of activity when engaged in specific sounds. As such, it helps answer my question as to how the bilingual brain is developed. 

Video Source:
I-LABS Tech Support. (2016, March 22). Bilingual and monolingual baby brains differ in response to language [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/ watch?time_continue=160&v=TAYhj-gekqw
Posted in Website

The Advantages of a Bilingual Brain

Posted on by jannetteaguilera

The website article called “The Advantages of a Bilingual Brain” by Laura Chaparro on April 26, 2018 talks about the positive impact that bilingualism has on individuals. Being bilingual is tied to delaying symptoms of dementia, better recovery after a stroke, better memory and attention skills, better working memory skills compared to monolinguals and the better executive functions like working with others and conflict resolution. In a study that examines micromanaging and behavioral studies on adulthood bilingualism found that “two languages protects against cognitive deterioration by improving the cognitive reserve.” Dementia is delayed by about four years as bilingualism keeps our minds and brains healthy. As for stroke recovery, 608 patients were analyzed by the Institute of Medical Sciences of Nizam (India). Of those, “40.5% of bilinguals recovered normal cognition, compared to 19.6% of monolinguals.” Regarding the brain, eleven month babies where studied at the University of Washington. They looked at babies of bilingual and monolingual families. They found that ” The prefrontal and orbitofrontal cortices (two areas of the frontal lobe) had more intense responses in bilingual babies compared to those who only heard and spoke one language. ” Also, bilingual individuals show denser grey matter on the “left interior parietal regions of the cerebral cortex” and white matter better maintained during aging. What is most interesting is the following: “Overall, bilinguals have developed different brain regions to perform tasks than the ones used by monolinguals,” Bialystok sums up. We still don’t know how these changes allow an improvement in performance and cognitive reserve for those who can speak two languages.

I chose this article as it answers my guiding question regarding the advantages of the bilingual brain. We see a delay in dementia, as well as an improvement in cognitive skills when compared to monolinguals. We also add on to the development of the bilingual brain because we now know that different regions are developed in the brains of bilinguals.

Image from the website
Image from the website
Chaparro, L. (2018, April 26). The advantages of a bilingual brain. Retrieved July 6, 2019, from OpenMind website: https://www.bbvaopenmind.com/en/science/research/the-advantages-of-a-bilingual-brain/
Posted in Creative Work

Tree of Life Paradise Goddess

Posted on by jannetteaguilera

This creative work was used as the logo of the CABE (California Association for Bilingual Education) conference 2019. I attended this conference which is tailored to educators and administration in bilingual or multilingual contexts. The author of this art piece is Sandra Silberzweig who has many similar styles of work pictured at her website: https://sandra-silberzweig.pixels.com/

While I am unsure as to why the conference chose this image, I can imagine why this image depicts the bilingual individual. Speaking two or more languages tends naturally become part of our identity and culture. It is lively, full of energy, an additional means to connect with the world around us. These are all of these indicate a sense of beauty of the bilingual brain.

Tree of life Paradise Goddess by Sandra Silberzweig
Photo Source: 
Silberzweig, S. (2012, April 23). Tree Of Life Paradise Goddess [Illustration].
Posted in Experiential

The Bilingual Brain by Arturo E. Hernandez by University of Houston System (Coursera) – Week 1

Posted on by jannetteaguilera

I took a free online class called “The bilingual Brain” on Coursera. Below are my notes on Lessons from week 1.

Office hours: Q&A of Instructor; A question was conducted on personality switching that occurs with language switching. Dr. Hernandez explains that different personalities come out depending on the context, not language specifically. For example, you be shy with many people around while outgoing with a friend. Personality can switch when you go home (relating to native language) to going to school (with a second language). Also, the first language is more tied to emotion. Different responses in bad words (stronger feeling in a native language). He also discusses how language impairments are apparent in any language, which does not depend on how many languages a child learns. He states: “Language impairment, to some extent, is independent of any particular language” Lastly, parents regret not maintaining the home language, and parents regret not being taught the native language. Kids can blend languages and eventually sort out the language. Parents must determine what the language outcome should be. Pushing for the native language is more work since the societal language is a stronger influence.

1.1 How are two languages coded in one brain? A guy (Arturo) spoke Italian (native language) and learned French and English as a young man. He suffered from hemiplegic stroke which caused a speech disturbance and could never recover French and English.

1.2 Jean Albert Pitres (doctor) defined familiarity as “the language that would be most resistant to damage would be the language that the patient was speaking at the time of the stroke.” He talks about how well you speak it plays a role.

1.3 Theador Ribot developed the theory “law of regression: memories learned in early life are organic.” He studied patients with dementia, more complex memories were forgotten, then the meaning of words, single words and then gestures. He had several bilingual patients, and he learned that earlier learned things are resistant to damage. For example, a forester who grew up in Poland and then moved to Germany, spoke German the rest of his life had gone through anesthesia for a surgical procedure. He then spoke Polish even though he had not spoken it in 30 years. In 1999, Franco Fabbro (in his book Neurolinguistics of Bilingualism) conducted research of many cases in the last 100 years with bilinguals who had brain damage and found that a third recovered their first language the fastest, a third their second language the fastest and a third both languages the same. Maybe it does not depend on language… So Patient A.S. spoke Farsi and learned German in college and conducted research in English. He would alternate between Farsi and German (without mixing the languages). After he fully recovered the two languages, he was able to recover English. Dr. Hernernadez was learning Portuguese in Brazil and had trouble speaking his Spanish and English native languages while doing so. Then the idea of control came up that could be called the language switch.

1.4 Otto Poetrzl introduced the language switch “a neurological mechanism that allows a speaker to remain in one language and switch to another.” Thus we can get stuck in a language, we can struggle with the idea to get out of a language by turning on a language and turning the other off. For example, there was a Czech native speaker who learned German at 14. He could understand both but can only speak Czech.

1.5 Three topics: Age of Acquisition – Law of regression, Proficiency – Familiarity, Control- Fixation. Metaphors of the mind: A computer (information possessor, like a machine), Linguistics (different language functions (sounds, words, letters, sentences) are broken by different types of damage), location (language is in different parts of the brain). Final thoughts: language is not one thing (complex, many layers, ex: sounds, letters, sentences, larger pieces of language), Language develops over time (many layers)

1.6 Bilingual Metaphor: Conflict between two languages, new languages, biological (two species coexisting in an ecosystem). Coexist, share resources.

This course is essential to answering my questions on the development of the bilingual brain and the advantages of the bilingual brain. In week 1 he lays out the foundations of the research on the bilingual brain and introduces the topics explored in the next coming lessons. We already see that studying the impact languages have on the brain is very complex.

Course Source:
Hernandez, A. E. (2019). Week 1 [Lecture transcript]. Retrieved July 6, 2019, from Cousera website: https://www.coursera.org/learn/bilingual/home/week/1
Posted in Book

The Bilingual Brain: Language, Culture, and Identity (Book Excerpt)

Posted on by jannetteaguilera

The book article “The bilingual brain: language, cultura and identity” by Nairan Ramirez-Esperanza and Adrian Garcia-Sierra” was published in July 2014 (as part of the Oxford Handbooks) and begins with the fact that many immigrant parents would teach their child to not speak their native language because English was thought to be “the gateway to becoming a part of American Society” (2). However, there has been a huge push for parents wanting their child to be bilingual in the recent years. Bilingualism is defined as “the ability of an individual to speak two languages” (2). The book discusses three characteristics involved in bilingualism: “age of second language acquisition, competence in first and second languages, and cultural identity” (2). Simultaneous bilinguals learn from an early age at the same time, second language learners are those who learn a different language after 3 years of age. Language competency is defined in different ways but can include “listening comprehension, speaking, reading and writing” (3). Cultural identity is involved since cultures are associated with languages but not culture is not always internalized. BII stands for when bilinguals can integrate and find compatibility between their two cultures. This usaully depends on how much the native language is associated with social status. Also, I found the following interesting: “Hong and colleagues (Hong, Morris, Chiu, & Benet-Martínez, 2000, see also chapter 2 in this volume) showed that biculturals are able to switch their perceptions in response to cultural cues: Chinese-American biculturals display more internal attributions when primed with American icons (e.g., American flag, Superman), and more external attributions when primed with Chinese icons (e.g., Chinese dragon, Great Wall)” (3).

Being bilingual is a norm in many countries, in 2006 a study found that 50% in Europe spoke to converse in two languages and almost 30% can do an additional language, while in the U.S. 80% speak only English. While there has been a growth in language since then, this is shocking since the U.S. is multicultural. A great cause is the belief that developing two languages can cause a cognitive delay, as well as a delay in speech. Code-switching (switching between two languages) was seen as a sign of confusion. As a result of limiting multiple languages, even maintaining cultural traditions are difficult. Empirical studies have found no difference between the “achievement of developmental milestones in a variety of areas, from babbling to word prosecution” of bilinguals compared to monolinguals (6). There was a higher amount of English words for babies of 18-30 months old monolinguals, but there is a similar growth if seen when summing up the words from two languages for bilinguals.

My guiding questions are: How is the bilingual brain developed? and What are the advantages of a bilingual brain? This text answers these questions since it describes what it means to be bilingual, how bilingualism is developed and challenges misconceptions regarding how learning two langues slows down connotative development. 

Book Excerpt Source:
Ramírez-Esparza, N., & García-Sierra, A. (2014). The Bilingual Brain: Language, Culture, and Identity. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199796694.013.012
Posted in Website

Why Bilinguals Are Smarter

Posted on by jannetteaguilera

This New York Times Article “Why bilinguals are smarter” is written by Yudhuit Bhattacharjee on March 17, 2012. The article starts talking about how being bilingual is more than just talking to a diverse group of people, it also makes you smarter by improving cognitive skills and can slow down dementia in older adults. While there is proof that both language systems are active in the brain when using one language, it makes the brain learn how to resolve internal conflict which in turn makes its cognitive muscles stronger. Thus, bilinguals can solve mental puzzles better than monolinguals. In a study conducted in 2004, preschoolers where asked to sort blue circles in a bin with a blue square and red squares in a bin with a red circle. Both bilinguals and monolinguals conducted this fine as they associated the colors into its correct bin. After, the children where asked to sort by the images which conflicted with the color. Bilinguals were faster in completing this task.

Research has shown that the experience of being bilingual improves executive function which include problem solving, planning and mentally demanding tasks. These include: ignoring distractions, switching attention and holding information. Researchers used to believe that the bilingual advantage came from being able to suppress one language system and that that caused bilinguals to ignore distractions. However, studies show that bilinguals are also able to perform better in tasks that do not need inhibition (when compared to monolinguals). Also, the main difference between bilinguals to monolinguals is the “heightened ability to monitor the environment… it requires keeping track of changes around you in the same way that we monitor our surroundings when driving.” Not only do bilinguals perform better, but there is less activity in the brain in the parts that have to do with monitoring, which makes them more efficient. Being bilingual affects the brain from infancy to old age. In a study conducted in 2009, 7 month old babies where tested by being presented an audio cue and screen with a puppet appearing on one side. Both bilinguals and monolinguals anticipated the puppet. After many times of doing this, the puppet appeared on the other side of the screen. After that, bilingual babies quickly anticipated the puppet in the new location while others did not. Bilingualism not only affects children, but also elderly. 44 Spanish-English speakers were studied were more resistant to dementia and symptoms of Alzheimer’s desease. ” the higher the degree of bilingualism, the later the age of onset.”

This research is essential for my guiding questions it expresses the advantages of the bilingual brain compared to those who are monolingual. Bilinguals can not only speak to various people with their two languages, but can also perform better in problem solving . Also, bilingualism has been attributed help with prolonging dementia.

Picture on website
Website Source:
Bhattacharjee, Y. (2012, March 17). Why bilinguals are smarter. Retrieved June 25, 2019, from The New York Times website: https://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/18/opinion/sunday/the-benefits-of-bilingualism.html
Posted in Website

Bilingual Brains – Smarter & Faster

Posted on by jannetteaguilera

The article “Bilingual brains – Smarter & Faster” is written by Judy Willis on November 22, 2012. The article describes bilingualism is a gift that parents can give their children because being bilingual has shown advantages when compared to those who know one language. These advantages include an elevated level of thinking/ awareness such as an increased attentive focus and cognition. For example, “compared to monolinguals, the studied bilingual children, who had had five to ten years of bilingual exposure, averaged higher scores in cognitive performance on tests and had greater attention focus, distraction resistance, decision-making, judgment and responsiveness to feedback.” Even in MRI scans, the prefrontal cortex networks of bilingual children demonstrated greater activity. These were specifically in the the brain networks called executive functions that are used for goal-oriented behavior. The brains of bilinguals are more complex since they need to figure out not only what a word means but what patterns of the sentence and grammar, and pronunciation that needs to be used for the language being spoken. For example: “these control networks make choices, such as which memory storage circuits are the language-correct ones to activate from which to select the correct word, syntax, and pronunciation. ”

Research has shown that parents who speak a different language than English should maintain the native language in the home even if there are social pressures to limit language learning. Parents feel that learning two languages will confuse the student in learning English and also making it difficult to transfer different schools. Also, children struggled to feel like they “fit in” due to having to translate for their parents and did not want their parents to sound “ignorant.” What these parents do not know is that learning two or more languages actually “strengthen their highest cognitive brain potentials.” Parents need to be informed about the research and keep the native language in the home. The brain is like a muscle that becomes stronger after we workout our body, that “build strength, speed, and efficiency in their executive function networks.” Now the research is done on how to expose children to bilingualism in early ages .

This is really important to for my research questions, as not only are the advantages of bilingualism being more commonly known, there is a visible growth in determining how to best achieve these advantages with our own children.

Images used in the website:

Website Source:
Willis, J., M.Ed. (2012, November 22). Bilingual brains - smarter & faster. Retrieved June 25, 2019, from Psychology Today website: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/radical-teaching/201211/bilingual-brains-smarter-faster