Multilingualism is an investment as it helps children immensely in the teaching and learning process, an internationally acclaimed academic and behaviourist has highlighted. Speaking at the recently concluded International Day of Education activities organised by Qatar Foundation (QF), Prof Roberto Fillippi, professor of psychology at UCL Institute of Education, UK, said that several researches support his theory.
Prof Fillippi is an expert in cognitive psychology and multilingualism and director of the Multilanguage and Cognition Lab at UCL. “Multilingualism is an investment in learning. It is an investment in identity and belonging, it is an investment in the future, an opportunity for the future for the children.
And the key point to take home, for leaders, is to make language an asset in the strategy, not a deficit in the policy. For teachers, they need to plan for bilingualism, not just hope for it,” explained Prof Fillippi.
Prof Fillippi appreciated the initiatives of QF in following a strong multilingual policy and bilingual identity based education by promoting Arabic language, national identity, culture, ethics, and innovation. He said while attending the World Innovation Summit for Education last year in Qatar, he had learned more about the diverse learning strategies in Qatar and was quite impressed by them.
The academic said that researchers need to work a little bit more, collaborate more with educators and with policymakers. “Sometimes researchers, live in their own environment, they do their own research. And policymakers, of course, would need to listen to what we say, to what we find, to fund what is fundable, But making decisions on real scientific evidence, I think is quite crucial for the future of multilingual education,” he continued.
“Children raised in multilingual environments often show more efficient attention control. This is linked to the early maturation of brain areas involved in decision-making and reasoning and skills that are crucial for education. Multilingualism is not the exception, it is the norm,” he highlighted.
At the same time, the expert noted that bilingualism can be challenging for some parents because they don't know how to communicate with their children in different languages. “Maybe they are concerned that two or more languages can confuse the brain of those children,” he noted.
He highlighted that there is no evidence that multilingualism is detrimental to linguistic or cognitive development. ”On the contrary, there are some kind of benefits of raising children with multilingualism.
The benefits can be not only linguistic but also non-linguistic in areas of the brain related to attention and control, which is crucial for learning. There is also some evidence, especially when we grow older, that multilingualism can protect the brain from the negative effects of ageing,” he added.
He pointed out that children from dual language schools have higher working memory skills, more efficient attention control, and higher musical skills, and that these skills are crucial for literacy, reading, and math development.