Bilingualism refers to the ability to speak or understand two languages. Singapore is a multilingual society with English, Mandarin, Malay, and Tamil being the main languages used. A child can become bilingual in multiple ways. For example, a child learns two languages when the child’s parents and caregivers switch between two languages frequently during daily interactions, thereby becoming bilingual. Another way is when the language spoken at home differs from the language spoken in school, the child picks up both languages and become bilingual (Walsh, 2015). Children enrolled in the Singapore education system become bilingual through different ways and learn to use two languages fluently.

Previous research has shown that bilingual children utilise cognitive resources beyond those needed for basic language learning when they switch between two languages (Walsh, 2015). For example, bilingual children have been observed to perform better than their monolingual counterparts in tasks that require executive function, which involves skills such as working memory, cognitive flexibility, attention control and reasoning (Bialystok et al., 2012).

Everyone’s bilingual status is dynamic–it changes over time. To understand how bilingualism develops, we explore aspects of the language environment such as the main language spoken at home, to recognise trends in children’s development. We also look into how the brain supports the development of these different languages. By conducting more bilingual studies, we are able to consider more variables that play key roles in an individual’s developmental trajectory. Additionally, we can also learn how language development can be better supported.

 

References

Bialystok, E., Craik, F. I., & Luk, G. (2012). Bilingualism: consequences for mind and brain. Trends in cognitive sciences, 16(4), 240-250.

Walsh, B. W. (2015, October 1). Bilingualism as a Life Experience. Harvard Graduate School of Education. https://www.gse.harvard.edu/news/uk/15/10/bilingualism-life-experience#:%7E:text=Bilingualism%20and%20executive%20function&text=Recent%20research%20has%20shown%20that,reasoning%2C%20and%20flexible%20problem%20solving

 

Drafted by: Kah Xuan

Edited by: Phoebe, Michelle, Joyce, Prof Annabel