Yes, we all know, but it’s nice to be reminded by the latest NPR Education podcast in the series 5 Million Voices (that is the number of students in the US who are English language learners). Attention, empathy, reading (English), school performance and engagement, diversity and integration, and protection against dementia are all potential brain benefits of bilingual education.
But it’s the last sentence of the podcast that really cracks us up.
Not to mention one obvious, outstanding fact underlined by many of these researchers: “Bilingual children can speak two languages! That’s amazing,” says Bialystok.
Here is the podcast in its entirety.