Penn State News – Melissa Beattie-Moss
“Does the U.S. deserve its reputation for lagging behind the rest of the world in language learning? If so, what are we failing to grasp about the importance of being bilingual? We are making progress, but still have a way to go, says Karen Miller, director of Penn State’s Language Acquisition Lab…if we increase our commitment to language education, more of our citizens would be able to reap the benefits it provides. For example, our capacity for attentional or cognitive control — the ability to focus on certain information and ignore other information — seems to be strengthened by bilingualism…There are many valid reasons to promote bilingualism, says Miller. “The bilingual experience appears to confer a set of positive consequences to cognition that provide increased mental flexibility for bilinguals at all ages…For younger generations, the growing popularity of dual-language immersion schools is a hopeful trend, she adds.”(more)