Creating bilingual minds

I wanted to share this video because I found interesting that the orator expose the myths of teaching or speaking to babies in more than one language at the same time.
She talks about how easy it is to babies rather than an adult to pick up a language or two. For example, we can remember how hard it was for us or for our friends when we were in school learning English or another foreign language. And it does not matter how much we effort we rarely achieve native fluency.
So, since it is kind of difficult, she explains that we could create bilingual minds since the baby is born. A baby can become a native speaker of two languages if we talk to them since the beggining in both. With a machine called "magnetoencephalography" researchers have seen that the brain of a monolingual and a bilingual baby is different. A bilingual baby is able to process whatever language or languages that are present in the environment, and also, they have stronger brain responses to language sounds in the pre-frontal region because of the constant switching between different languages.
The studies show that the brain is fully able to specialise in two languages at the same time.
A myth that exist is that bilingualisms slowers language learning. But actually the patterns are very similar to what we see in monolingual learners.
So, will you make your future baby bilingual?

Carolina Araújo

Who I am as a learner? (Andrea Campos)

Hello! My name is Andrea Campos. I am studying to become an English teacher in the University of Valencia.

In my first post, I’m going to talk about me as a learner.

According to the Cambridge dictionary, a learner is a person who is learning something; so, I could say I have been a learner all my life.

Since I was born I have been learning something. First, how to act, speak and walk. Then, I entered school and I learnt to read and to write. I really enjoyed attending lessons and my favourite subject was English, I suppose this is the reason why I wanted to be an English teacher; I attended English lessons two hours a week. After the years, I have been improving and learning new things about life. I was also studying English as an extracurricular lesson. Moreover, I have always liked reading, and I think this is a great access to knowledge.

Later, in high school, I learnt about mathematics, first languages (Valencian and Spanish), foreign languages (English and French), chemistry, biology, technology, physics, history, social science, music, arts, physical education, civic values, ethics and philosophy. In addition, my English after school study continued.

When I finished high school, I wanted to study the degree that will allow me to work, in the future, in the job that I always liked. For this, I applied the teaching degree in the University of Valencia. During these years at university, I have been engaged in subjects that have provided me the necessary formation to achieve the skills and knowledge that a good teacher should have. In the third year, I have specialised for becoming an English teacher. In order to do that, I have chosen the subjects that would let me achieve the knowledge I would need.

During all this time, English has been a compulsory subject for me both inside and outside the classroom. Because of that, as I said before, I attend an academy since I was 5. My mother taught me the importance of languages when I was little (besides the importance of knowledge and education in general). Due to this, I have studied French for six years, and in the future, I would like to learn new languages such as German and Italian (a language that I would love to learn).

After all these years of learning, I have to say that I haven't finished yet. My intention is to continue studying during all my life as much as I can, specially the English language. I would like to be informed of as much as I can about teaching, in order to have all the knowledge possible so that I can choose the best methodologies for my lessons. English has been so relevant throughout my life and, I think, it will always be.

Has using L1 in foreign language teaching positive effects? Andrea Campos

There is a generelized thought in Spanish society about that L1 should not be used in foreign language English; in these lessons the only language permitted is L2. There's a general fear with L1 interference.

This thought agreed with Krashen ideas, who refuses to use L1 in second language acquisition.

Otherwise, other authors like Cook (2001) or Atkinson (1987), thinks that the use of L1 helps to gain confidence and reduce ansiety since it reduces affective barriers. This reason becomes more relevance when students of L2 have a low level and, because of that, have difficulties when expressing their ideas; in this case, L1 should be permitted. 

In addition, Widdowson (2003) argued that there's no theoretical reason for not using L1.
 Prodromou (2002) believes that L1 can be used for several procedures such as explaining difficult concepts, checking comprehension, vocabulary clarification, or raising learners’ self-confidence. However, utilizing the L1 does not mean translating all classroom activities into learners.When the L1 is excessively used, learners tend to believe that they cannot cope with learning the L2.

With this, I want to reflect about how many false believes we have and that there not a common consensus about which is the best way of teaching a second language. We have to find the proper balance between L1 and L2 use.

The benefits of a bilingual brain

I have found an interesting video which talks about bilingualism and its advantages.

Some years ago the investigators thought in their hypothesis that the bilingualism was a problem, but after some researches, nowadays it is consider a benefit to our brain.

The brain is not the same in people who is monolingual than in people who is bilingual. The ones who are bilingual have more or less the same capacity to manage in the both languages they know.

Moreover, it is known that to know a language is necessary to have two active parts which are the speaking and writing and two passive parts the listening and reading. Depending on the situation and how the person acquires the language he or she could be 3 different types of bilingual person.

He or she could have learnt the first and second language at the same time, the first language at home and the second one at school or learning the second one from the first one.

Moreover, because we have our brain splitted in two parts, when we are in our critical period, what it means that we are children, we have more plasticity in the two hemispheres, and for that reason we have more capacity to learn a second language with a proficiency level. On the contrary adults only have more plasticity on the left hemisphere for that reason is more difficult to acquire a proficiency level in a second language, and they also have a more rational approachment in the second language problems.

Finally, something that has attracted my attention has been that according to the video being multilingual can provide us too many advantages as for example, delaying cognitive illnesses such as Alzheimer.  So even when you are an adult you can start learning another language not only to improve your knowledge but also your health.

Noelia Máñez