Multilingualism, Acquisition, and Development (MAD) colloquium: Rethinking the bilingual advantage: How dual language activation enhances cognitive and linguistic abilities in bilingual children

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Abstract

The question of whether bi-/multilingual children exhibit cognitive and metacognitive advantages over their monolingual peers has sparked ongoing debate in the literature. While some studies report such advantages, other fail to replicate these findings.  

This talk proposes a new perspective: the bi-/multilingual advantage may only become visible at the individual level when children are encouraged to engage their full linguistic repertoire, rather than being limited to just one of their languages. I will present results from a series of experiments based on a within participant design in which the same bi-/multilingual children performed tasks in both unilingual and bi-/multilingual modes. These experiments targeted domains such as metalinguistic awareness, text integration during reading comprehension, and creative thinking. They were conducted across diverse educational contexts, including bilingual schools in Europe and government primary schools in India.  

The findings consistently show that children’s performance improves when tasks are presented in a bi-/multilingual mode compared to a unilingual one. I will explore why the activation of multiple languages appears to enhance cognitive and metacognitive processes and offer a reinterpretation of previous research on the bi-/multilingual advantage in light of these findings. Finally, I will outline the educational implications of these results, advocating for curriculum designs that systematically activate and integrate children’s full linguistic repertoires.

Please contact garcia@leibniz-zas.de for the Teams link and password.