Found in Translation: Bilingual Children show Cognitive Advantages

Meredith Price

Yarden Dvir, like many children in Israel, is growing up in a bilingual home, where two languages are spoken interchangeably. A few years ago, it seemed odd to her that some people in Israel only speak Hebrew, while her family speaks both Hebrew and English. "When our daughter Yarden spoke to her Israeli cousins in English, she didn't realize that they wouldn't understand her," explains Sarah Dvir, a dance therapist and social worker from Ra'anana. Now, at the age of nearly four and a half, Yarden has learned how to navigate between the languages and fully understands when to speak Hebrew and when to speak English. And she is not alone. After the age of two, most bilingual children are capable not only of clearly distinguishing between their two languages, but also of knowing who speaks what languages and under what circumstances. "Children can tell when someone is a native speaker of a language because they are cleverer than we are," says Sarah Dvir. "They cannot be conned, so if things are kept natural, they will be happier and know more," she explains.

The experts unanimously agree that keeping things in a multilingual home as natural as possible is the best way for children to acquire language. "People should raise their children how they feel comfortable," advises Dr. Sharon Armon-Lotem, a language-acquisition specialist and a lecturer at Bar-Ilan University. Perhaps one reason why parents are so concerned about using more than one language at home is because for many years, bilinguals were considered to be at a disadvantage rather than at an advantage.

In the past, unfounded urban legends about bilinguals being confused, slow to speak and weaker in both languages than monolinguals were widely circulated. Today, thanks to innovative research and migration trends, things are changing. Over the past 10 years, serious linguistic studies have revealed that many bilingual phenomena, such as mixing languages, are not random or unusual. Every multilingual family is accustomed to hearing a mixture of languages. Things like "that's my sefer [book]" or "ani rotsa [I want] olives" or "not on the shulhan [table]!" are commonplace in Hebrew-English bilingual households, and the same mishmashes also appear in other language combinations. When she was younger, Yarden Dvir even made up a word of her own using a combination of both languages. "Chickicolet" was her personal name for both a chicken and a tarnegolet.

One mother recounted an incident about towels and her bilingual daughter. She asked her child whether she wanted a light or dark pink towel and the response she got was, "I want pink 'or.'" It threw her off for a moment because while "or" is an English word, it is also the Hebrew word for "light." She realized her daughter was giving her answer – she wanted the light pink towel – although in Hebrew, the word "or" is not used to differentiate between shades of color. Aside from creating humor, recent studies have shown that children who speak more than one language from an early age also show cognitive advantages over monolinguals in problem-solving tasks. These advantages seem to relate to the fact that bilinguals have different ways of analyzing problems and extra faculties for storing concepts. Prof. Joel Walters, the chair of the English Department at Bar-Ilan University, recently published a book entitled Bilingualism: The Sociopragmatic-Psycholinguistic Interface (Erlbaum, 2005), in which he reviews some of the phenomena that make bilinguals cognitively unique. "For a bilingual, speaking in two languages and flipping between them is as easy and natural as breathing," writes Walters.

So while bilinguals do differ from monolinguals, for many families in Israel, being different is a good thing. "My children are different, but it is a good difference. They are not afraid of situations in which they don't know the language. They have a lot of cognitive flexibility and they adapt easily to multilingual situations," says Susie Russak, the coordinator for the support services in English at Beit Berl College and the mother of three bilingual children. "Having another language is a positive thing. Some people said it would confuse our children, but we have never had any trouble. It was all perfectly natural for them and came easily," says Efrat Gold, a physiotherapist from Ra'anana who is raising two bilingual daughters. The children themselves also seem to think being bilingual is a good thing. When I asked Yarden Dvir if she likes speaking two languages, she replied, "Yes, ve'ani rotsa ledaber hamon [and I want to speak a lot of] English vehamon [and a lot of] Hebrew." Having two languages is also closely tied to identity and family life. Often, bilingual children need their second language to communicate with close family members who either live in Israel but do not speak Hebrew, or who live abroad. "We chose to speak to our girls in English so that they can communicate with their grandparents who only speak English," says Gold. "They understood from an early age that they could only speak English to their grandparents and have never had any trouble with confusion." In fact, when their grandparents recently came for a visit in December, the Golds asked their daughters what Hebrew words they would teach them while they were in Israel. The first word that came to five-year-old Tai's mind was simple: "matanot," which were probably lavishly bestowed on both her and her sister.

But raising bilingual children also involves challenges. Because social identity is closely linked to language, children sometimes rebel against anything that makes them different from their peers, including the use of another language. It is normal for children to explore their social identities through language, and bilingual children often have specific vocabulary only in the language of the home or only in the language of the school. For example, Purim costumes might be a topic they only know how to reference in Hebrew if they are in a Hebrew-speaking kindergarten, but that does not necessarily mean that their home language is threatened. If their home language, be it English, Russian, German, Arabic or something else, differs from the dominant language of society, they might decide that the language of their peers is more important for social adjustment. Parents should be prepared for handling those situations without being bullied into either relinquishing their own language by language clinicians or forcing their children to use only one language. "Six months ago, our daughter Yarden decided to only speak Hebrew. She puts a few words into English and she understands everything, but we have to accept what she does and not make too much of a fuss about it," says Sarah Dvir. Until three months ago, Yair Geri, the four-and-a-half-year-old son of Danielle and Dan Geri, spoke mostly English to his bilingual mother. He recently decided to speak Hebrew to her too. "I got good advice from Jack 'Yaki' Moore, the director of his kindergarten [Kids' Gan in Ra'anana], about how to handle this change," explains Geri, a prenatal instructor in Ra'anana. "When I tried to force Yair to speak English, he rebelled, but now that I let him express himself in whatever language comes easier, he has naturally gone back to using more English." One little Japanese boy who also attends Kids' Gan refused to respond to a Japanese greeting. "That's for my mother," he said emphatically, hands on hips and brow furrowed. For him, Japanese is not acceptable in the public domain. It is a special tongue he only uses with his mother. It is important to accept what children choose to do with their language because it relates closely to their feelings and sense of identity. "Even if Yair speaks to me in Hebrew, I carry on in English. I try to translate what he says into English sometimes to keep up his vocabulary," says Geri.

According to Moore, who has two bilingual children of his own and has been working with kids for over 25 years as a speech therapist and a kindergarten director, "the emotional impact behind language should be considered when children choose between languages. Some things need to be said in English, while others can only be said in Hebrew." One additional challenge for bilingual children arises when problems with language do occur. Many speech therapists, who are trained to handle monolingual difficulties, do not consider the fact that bilinguals having trouble need to be treated differently. Armon-Lotem claims that there are two types of speech therapists in Israel: those who recommend waiting out a problem and those who diagnose the problem but give the wrong advice, such as foregoing one of the languages. Contrary to the suggestion that many language clinicians in Israel give to drop one language if bilinguals encounter problems, according to Armon-Lotem, the more exposure to the two languages, the better. "If a child has problems with their first language, they will most likely also have problems with their second language," she explains. "The problems are underlying and are not caused by the bilingualism. If problems exist anyway, more exposure can only help and not hurt." The linguistics department at Bar-Ilan University is currently conducting a study of bilingual children with specific language impairments to try to prove that their language difficulties are not connected to the fact that they speak more than one language. "For many years, it was assumed that problems are caused by bilingualism. We are trying to prove that this is not the case and that bilinguals with language problems are not at risk because of their bilingualism," explains Armon-Lotem.

So what can parents who are raising bilingual children do to improve their children's language other than speak to them? Start as early as possible, keep things natural and provide an exciting learning atmosphere. "Try to maintain a language-rich environment with lots of stimuli like songs, films, literature, videos and conversations," recommends Russak, who is also the author of a series of books aimed at helping people with language difficulties, Rescue 1, Rescue 2 and Chance. Another important way to contribute to children's successful language acquisition is to take the time to help them with it. "Read to your children. Make it a habit, not just something you do once a week," says Armon-Lotem. At Kids' Gan in Ra'anana, motivation and functionality play a major role in helping children learn a second language. "We use language techniques to make sure that the children will use English, and it's a good opportunity for us to motivate the children in a structured framework. Mealtimes are always in English, for example," explains Moore.

Whatever the second language may be, it needs to be presented as more than a song or a rhyme. Children need to be exposed to it in a setting where it will be natural and spontaneous to speak and use the language. As each situation is unique, no general rules and regulations apply to everyone for raising bilingual children. Some linguists recommend the "one parent-one language" approach to avoid confusing the child. However, it has not been proven that mixing languages at home creates any more problems for the bilingual child than strictly separating each language. And if the division between languages is unnatural, it might do more harm than good. So forget trying to stop children from saying, "I want mitz [juice]" or "buba [doll] is hurt." Mixed speech is part of a natural process. At the end of the day, raising bilingual children might be more demanding than raising monolingual children, but the multilingual families in Israel seem to unanimously agree that the challenges are well worth meeting.