Giving Compass' Take:

• Speaking more than one language is a valuable asset, but schools often treat students who are bilingual and speak English as a second language as disadvantaged. 

• How would schools change if they treated bilingual students as more, rather than less, advanced? How can policymakers help to sculpt this change in schools? 

• Learn more about bilingual education and preparing children for a multicultural world. 

Speaking at least two languages is known to improve multitasking and problem-solving skills, increase cognitive flexibility, lead to greater future job opportunities, reduce one’s risk for dementia in later years, and give children insight into other cultures as they explore different cultural identities within themselves. And when a privileged child adds a second language to their education — known as “additive bilingualism” — it’s generally perceived as a positive, even prestigious, endeavor. But this isn’t the case for “subtractive bilingualism,” when a new language supplants the language spoken at home.

Claire Bowern, associate professor of linguistics at Yale University, explains that for these children — children for whom that second language is meant to become their primary language — bilingualism tends to be viewed as a challenge to be overcome, rather than an opportunity to be embraced.

It’s true that when bilingual children from these groups enter the education system, they rarely sound like their native peers; it can also take them a long time to attain fluency in the language used by their fellow students and teachers. As a consequence, according to Bowern, non-native speakers are often put in special education programs, which can carry a lasting stigma, as well as set back a student’s proficiency in a number of areas.

Read the full article on bilingual students by Karen Emslie at GOOD Magazine.