Neuroscience and bilingualism
In this lecture, Albert Costa, expert on cognitive neuroscience, talks about the advantages and disadvantages about being bilingual or multilingual.
In one hand, the fact of being bilingual means spending more time on producing speech because the brain has more information to process. In the other hand, we can resume the advantages in five points:
- Bilinguals had acquired the method to learn and change into a third language.
- Bilinguals can ignore better than monolingual irrelevant information.
- Bilinguals can change faster the language they speak in.
- Bilingualism don’t affect the orientation faculty.
- Bilingualism improve the procedural control.
We are the filmmakers of a forthcoming documentary, SPEAKING IN TONGUES which speaks to some of the advantages of teaching children to be bilingual at a young age.
SPEAKING IN TONGUES tells the story of four diverse kids becoming bilingual in the public schools in a time when 31 states have passed English Only initiatives. As their city debates the provocative notion that speaking a foreign language can be a national asset, we see how they face the challenges and delights of becoming fluent in two languages. Through their eyes, we witness how speaking more than one language changes them, their families, their communities, and maybe even the world.
To learn more about the film, you can watch our 2 minute trailer at:
http://www.speakingintonguesfilm.info
or read the description on the San Francisco International Film Festival website, where the film is premiering in April: http://fest09.sffs.org/films/film_details.php?id=84
Regards,
Marcia Jarmel and Ken Schneider
PatchWorks Films
Marcia Jarmel
April 17, 2009 at 9:05 pm