Essay About Bilingualism

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The product of two years of a foreign language class in high school graduates, is less than one student who graduates, fluent in the language they studied (Caplan). Being bilingual has proven to show many advantages that don’t only improve a students educationally life but also how shaped and cultured the person can be in every day life. It has also been proven to show a slower unset of some diseases. It can also strengthen the mind making one able to think more efficiently. If bilingualism is proven to show advantages the school district, parents of students, and students themselves should care about the advantages that bilingualism holds. The public should be educated on all the advantages being bilingual have on the child’s future. Even He talks about a study done by, Tamer Gollan, a neuropsychologist of the University of California, San Diego. He did a study on 44 elderly Spanish-English bilinguals. Gollan measured the level of bilingualism in each subject. The results showed that the higher level of proficiency in two languages showed a lower onset of certain diseases (Bhattacharjee). In the article “The Power of the Bilingual Mind,” by Jeffrey Kluger, he talks about a study done by Ellen Bialystok. In this study she studied seniors suffering from “serious age-related cognitive decline”, she found that bilinguals got and extra 4.1 years more of clarity before symptoms of dementia set in. She also found that bilinguals gained 5.1 more years than monolinguals who develop Alzheimer’s specifically (Kluger). If put into perspective being bilingual doesn’t fully stop or prevent such diseases but being fluent in two or more languages shows a help in unset of the disease with the help of other medications to help. Simply put, the research shows that being bilingual helps with the unset of these diseases but will not prevent

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