This week, in line with when we will be conducting home languages interviews, I wanted to share with you a meta-analysis focusing on the benefits incurred by bilingualism.
Objectives: To look at the correlation between bilingualism and ‘executive function’ (namely inhibition, switching, attention, monitoring, working memory and planning) in children under the age of 18.
Summary:
Overall the bilingual advantage in executive function was statistically significant
A moderator analysis was performed to determine any other factors leading to this advantage. Socioeconomic status was discovered to be a significant factor - middle class children having a much greater advantage in executive function than their lower class counterparts.
Certain elements of executive function had a stronger bilingual advantage; notably attention.
How does this impact me and my practice?: Some reflection questions arising from this that might be helpful to consider are:
How does this study impact our EAL learners?
How can we seek to use this bilingual advantage that many of our students have in their attention spans?
If anyone would like to discuss this further with Jaya - please do comment below! She’d be delighted to open up these discussions and conversations.
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