Cambridge University Press – Peeter Mehisto
“In our global, interconnected world it is increasingly the norm to know several languages. The motivation may be economic – selling is more successful in the local language; social – maintaining heritage languages while fostering social cohesion; or cultural – culture is embedded in language and language is a means to deepen understanding across a cultural divide…Parents, educators and policy makers who are contemplating bilingual forms of education are often fearful that students will achieve less well in their native language and experience lower levels of achievement in maths and science if they are taught through a second language…We now know from this research and many other evaluation studies of bilingual education around the world that, when student performance is assessed over a number of years, students in bilingual programmes can attain the same levels in maths and science as students in monolingual programmes and often better; they maintain the same level of native language competence; and at the same time they become functionally bilingual…Clearly it is a huge advantage in a global era to be able to communicate in more than one language and to be able to draw upon a wider number of sources of information on the internet and in print…Researchers have found that bilinguals also benefit from an ability to look at things different perspectives. They have increased self confidence when communicating with others, and an ability to cope with unfamiliarity. There are cognitive benefits too.”(more)