After learning one foreign language, you always want to start learning another. So, if you speak two foreign languages ​​to one degree or another, you will be called a bilingual.

Even in the middle of the last century, the opinions of scientists regarding this concept differed. However, today most of them have come to the conclusion that the positive aspects of bilingualism outweigh the negative ones. We'll talk about this today.

So, studies have shown that people who speak two languages ​​are better able to cope with the following key functions of mental activity:

• honing cultural awareness;
• use of logic;
• focusing, remembering and making decisions;
• understanding mathematical concepts and problem solving;
• comprehension of what you read.

These are not all the advantages of a person who speaks two languages. Scientists note improved mental health. Thus, polyglots make decisions faster, they are more intelligent and are not susceptible to Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia. By the way, dementia is not scary for those who dance, solve crossword puzzles and read a lot.

Concerning academic performance, then students who speak two languages ​​always outperform their classmates who speak one language when taking tests.

Knowledge of several languages ​​is a unique preparing for the future: So, when looking for a job, it is given to bilinguals. Besides, wage polyglots are often 20% higher, and career opportunities are wider.

Research also shows that the brain of a bilingual speaker is more developed in the areas where speech is produced and processed.

The sensory speech area (or Wernicke's speech center) produces speech sounds.

In the auditory cortex, auditory stimuli are perceived and sent to Wernicke's speech center.

The motor cortex controls the lips and mouth during speech.

In Broca's olfactory field, the brain organizes and prepares speech for active speaking.

All of the above advantages suggest that one language is good, but two are still better.

In 2009, 79% of children aged 5 to 17 spoke only English at home, while 21% spoke a second foreign language. In Belgium and Denmark, communication in only one language is encouraged. Statistics show that only ¾ of university students studied 2 or more languages ​​68% European countries. At the end of 2014 in the UK, children of preschool and primary school age were recommended to start studying languages ​​such as Greek and even Latin.

The trend is towards communication in multiple languages ​​becoming the norm. For example, 95% of Luxembourg residents speak two or more languages, and in Latvia this is almost every resident of the country.

Most linguistically developed country considered Papua New Guinea, where there are 830 local languages.

We are confident that this article will help you join those who speak several languages, especially since it is not at all difficult; you can take a trial lesson in a new language for you right now.

The modern pace of life requires maximum preparedness from a person. To achieve professional success and highly paid positions, it is no longer enough to be punctual and have a diploma higher education. Today, people who speak several languages ​​are valued in all areas; moreover, you need to know them like native speakers. This result is easy to achieve if you study them from childhood; for this, many parents send their children to a bilingual school kindergarten. What it is, what they teach there and how we will try to tell you below.

A little about bilingualism

Bilingualism- the practice of alternately using two languages, when one person can communicate in their native and any foreign dialect. This situation often occurs in multinational countries, where the official languages ​​are, for example, English and French, as in Canada.

Another striking example can be the USSR, when one official language It did not rule out that in some republics the people used their own dialect, so it turned out that in Belarus they taught Russian and Belarusian, in Kazan - Tatar and Russian.

Today, bilingualism is not only a norm established by living conditions, but also a professional necessity. In an active atmosphere international cooperation of all industries, the import of foreign products and exports into our country is gaining momentum, almost any reputable position requires extensive knowledge and skills.

That is why bilingual education for children, for whom caring parents wish a decent future, is becoming increasingly popular.

What is bilingual education?

This practice has long been accepted in many countries. Research shows that a child studying in a special kindergarten or school overcomes problems much more easily. interethnic problems, is less susceptible to nationalistic prejudices, and also achieves greater success in professional development.

IN different countries Bilingual education may differ in its methodological programs. In Russia, each educational institution offers its own methods, but basically they all have three types:

1. Support reading and writing of native culture and learning foreign ones. Here classes are taught in the native language, and a foreign language is taught as an additional language;
2. The second type involves teaching in the native dialect until the child is able to fully speak and learn in the second;
3. The third provides classes or groups of, for example, Russian-speaking children and non-Russian-speaking children - the children learn by communicating.

Thus, parents can choose both a set of languages ​​and a form of education. But while almost all multilingual kindergartens in our country are private institutions, not everyone can afford to educate their child in them, and most parents are content with clubs. But unfortunately, this is not quite the same level and result.

Pros and cons of bilingual kindergartens

Despite numerous positive reviews of the system, it has both supporters and opponents. It's connected with positive aspects methodology and its disadvantages.

pros bilingual practice:

• It, like no other, contributes to the development of communication abilities, makes the child more mobile, he becomes liberated and flexible, adapted to the difficulties of the multifaceted adult world, since he already knows how to work in several directions;
• The vocabulary expands significantly;
• Children become tolerant and accept other cultures more easily;
• There is an opportunity to learn new languages ​​without breaking away from your ethnicity.

AND minuses:

• Sometimes a person’s native speech dissipates, the connection with his native culture is lost, he is completely immersed in the ethnic group he is studying;
• The lack of qualified teachers - real native speakers, results in a kind of “marriage” characteristic of foreign language clubs at school: agrammatism, intonation, incorrect use of lexical categories.

Undoubtedly, there are more advantages, but when choosing an institution for your child, take your time and attend open classes.

What does this look like in practice?

Fundamentally, lessons in multilingual institutions are no different. Experts divide them into two types:

• Contentful;
• Subject.

A meaningful education involves learning throughout the entire period equally in two languages, thus developing a completely “bicultural” personality. This method is typical for places with a multinational population. The same amount of time is allocated for classes, for example, Russian and English, while learning literary rules accepted in both cultures.

Subject teaching involves conducting part of the disciplines in one dialect, and part in another. But according to experts, this technology is not capable of creating a full-fledged bilingual; it is only capable of giving some ideas about the peoples living abroad, since in this case neither thinking nor linguistic thought develops.

The two listed approaches are fundamentally different and pursue different goals, so parents, when choosing an educational institution, must clearly understand what they want to get in the end.

List of preschool educational institutions in Moscow

There are few of them, but they exist, it’s worth familiarizing yourself with them all before making a choice:

• KidsEstate - has been operating since 2003, located in the center of Moscow. The program involves Russians and English courses according to international standards and Federal State Educational Standards for the type of content-based learning;
• P’titCREF - offers three languages ​​at once. In one group there are children who speak different languages, thanks to which they get used to each other better and easily absorb knowledge;
• Baby-Bilingual Club - according to reviews it is considered one of the best. Includes three gardens providing excellent linguistic immersion;
• English Nursery & Primary School - a whole complex of 5 kindergartens and primary school. Local teachers have extensive experience, which they brought with them directly from the UK. The practice involves both the British and Russian education systems.

There is plenty to choose from, the main thing is approach the issue thoroughly, study the assortment well, it is important to choose an institution in which the child will feel comfortable and spend time with maximum benefit.

So, bilingual kindergartens and schools are the future of our education, because here children learn to think more broadly, accept more information, and most importantly, they begin to understand the culture of other peoples and become tolerant. And all this is achieved through regular and playful communication, without boring textbooks and notebooks.

Video: how classes are held in bilingual institutions

In this video, Roman Poroshin will tell you what children are taught in such kindergartens and how classes are conducted:

There is a widespread belief that only those who speak two languages ​​from early childhood can be considered bilingual: children from mixed marriages, for example, or children of emigrants. In fact, the languages ​​that a bilingual speaks do not necessarily have to be native to him - there is no such requirement in the definition of bilingualism. Moreover, experts, it turns out, generally believe that it is impossible to know two languages ​​at the same level and to the same extent - too many factors influence language proficiency: in what conditions and at what age was it studied, in what situations and how often was it used and is used, and so on and so forth and so on. Most often, a bilingual, like everyone who knows several languages, has a dominant, primary language, which is easier and more familiar to speak. However, this does not stop a bilingual from being a bilingual. A bilingual person must be able to speak two languages ​​without resorting to translation, that is, not to translate back and forth from Russian to English and from English to Russian, but to think and speak in Russian and English, easily switching from one language to another.

To be bilingual, it is not even necessary to learn a language from infancy; bilingualism can be either congenital or acquired. Congenital bilingualism is said to occur when the acquisition of two languages ​​begins in early childhood. At this age, the second language is acquired through the same mechanisms as the first. The older the child gets, the more complex the mechanisms of his language acquisition become. If a child begins to learn a second language in school age, then we are already talking about sequential (successive) bilingualism, in which learning occurs through comparison and contrast: the child begins to perceive the phonetics and grammar of the second language “in contrast” with the first. It is believed that after 8-11 years of age, the likelihood of absolute mastery of the phonetic system and language structures decreases. But you can become bilingual as an adult.

A special or, as experts say, extreme case of bilingualism is translation bilingualism. Despite the fact that not every bilingual person can work as a translator, every translator must certainly be bilingual. Bilingualism of a professional translator is not only knowledge of two languages, but also, first of all, the ability to find equivalent analogues and means for expressing thoughts in languages.

In addition to all the obvious benefits that come with being fluent in two languages, a 2010 study found that bilinguals are better at switching from one task to another and performing multiple tasks at once than those who speak only one language—in programming, this is called multitasking. . Two groups of students took part in the study: a group of bilinguals and monolinguals. Both groups had to solve a certain number of problems, with the right and left hand The subjects were given various tasks. It turned out that bilinguals responded to changes in tasks faster and completed tasks more accurately. The study proved that bilingualism is more than just knowing two languages. Bilingualism has a positive effect on a person’s development, his ability to navigate in unusual situations, and make quick decisions.

However, given that today knowledge of languages ​​is no longer an advantage, but a necessity, is it really necessary to look for evidence of the benefits of learning languages? If you don’t yet speak a second or third language, it’s time to start learning them!

This is unlikely about personality changes, but language (its structure and features) affects thinking.

If consciousness really depends on linguistic structure, then bilingual people should have a mixed worldview, and many readers may have already wondered whether similar studies have been conducted with those who speak several languages ​​at once. This is exactly what Panos Athanasopoulos of Lancaster University and his colleagues did, publishing their results in . Their experiment involved people who spoke English and German languages, either on one or both. German and English emphasize what is happening differently. If in English you can very well explain at what time an event happened and how its different episodes relate to each other on a timeline, then in German more attention is paid to the circumstances of the action: where, how and why it happened.
If language really influences consciousness, then German-speaking and English-speaking individuals should see things differently. Both were shown a series of videos of people walking, running, diving or riding bicycles, but the meaning of their actions was not entirely obvious. For example, a video of a woman walking was filmed in such a way that one could assume that she had a goal and was walking towards a specific building - or that she was walking aimlessly down the street. And in such scenes, the experiment participants were asked to decide whether the person in the video had a goal or not.
It turned out that German speakers were looking for a specific goal in what was happening on the screen in 40% of cases, while English speakers were looking for a specific goal in only 25%. (We emphasize that we are not talking about a right or wrong answer; both interpretations, goal-oriented and goalless, had the right to exist.) We can say that the Germans were focused on possible consequences action, whereas the British were more concerned with action itself.
Well, what about bilingual people? They occupied an intermediate position, partly obeying the language they learned. If a German who speaks English fluently was in his home country during the experiment and was spoken to in German, then he was still oriented toward the goal of the action. If the experiment was staged in Great Britain and in English, then the bilingual Germans switched to the action itself. Of course, here too we can talk about the influence of the general cultural environment. However, the next version of the experiment showed that it was still a matter of language. While watching a video, people were asked to pronounce a set of numbers out loud, in German or in English - so, according to the authors of the work, it was possible to temporarily activate one language and “put to sleep” the other. It turned out that the perception of the video changed depending on which language was active: if a person was counting out loud in German, then he was looking for the purpose of what was happening (“the woman is going to come”), if the count was in English, then the accent was narrower on the action itself (“the woman is just walking”). If the language of counting changed during the experiment, then the perception of what was seen also changed.

Welcome to the pages of my blog!

Learning foreign languages ​​is of great importance for modern man. If you want to be successful, travel and visit other countries, you need to be fluent in 1-2 foreign dialects.

But do not forget that in some countries or regions there may be two adverbs accepted for communication. Thus, children also face the task of studying two subjects.

Bilingual education is a system of education in two languages, which is gradually becoming very popular in Russia and abroad. What is it?

Which ones are they studying?

When readers hear the term “bilingual education,” they imagine a school or kindergarten where children are taught bilingually. What kind of bilingual education system is this?

The principle of understanding is correct, but it is worth noting that the training system will be different in Russia and abroad.

What's the difference?

Let's compare two countries: Russia and Canada.

In Canada, as many people know, two official languages ​​are considered - English and French. Therefore, in order to be full members of the society of their country, children need to study and know both well. Kids learn not only at school, but also in communication with teachers and with each other.

The end result is that the kids write, talk, and read fluently.

In Russia there is only one state one. Only in some regions the principle of bilingual education is close to the Canadian model: Russian and the dialect of the nationality to which the child belongs are studied. For example, in Tatarstan it is Tatar.

A similar situation arises in former republics ah USSR. Thus, Russian and Belarusian are studied in Belarus, Russian and Kazakh are studied in Kazakhstan, etc. At the same time, Russian is necessary only as a means of communication between representatives of the former republics of the USSR, although in Belarus it is native language for the majority of residents.

Consequently, bilingual education translates into learning two foreign languages ​​through communication with their native speakers. Let's consider how the principles of learning are implemented in both cases.

Learning foreign languages

Bilingual education for preschoolers is gaining popularity in Russian children's institutions. Its essence is that kindergartens are organized where children learn two languages ​​at the level of their native ones.

The teachers are native speakers, so children immediately learn the correct pronunciation, use of expressions, and meaning of words.

The combination of languages ​​may be different, but one of them must be English.

Why is such an early education necessary when the baby has difficulty speaking his native language? Educators and psychologists believe that children good memory, so they quickly learn new material.

The foreign language they learn remains in their subconscious. Even if the baby doesn’t continue to study intensively, if necessary, he will learn it much faster in adulthood and will not get lost in the company of native speakers.

Whether these statements are true or not is still difficult to verify. Children studying in bilingual kindergarten are just becoming schoolchildren. Researchers will see the results only in ten years.

Teaching schoolchildren foreign languages in Russia the situation is even worse. IN secondary schools English and others are studied according to a standard program that does not provide for introduction into the language environment.

Pupils of bilingual kindergartens will have to look for an alternative: an English school where classes are taught by native speakers.

Thus, in Russia, teaching foreign dialects is just beginning to be introduced. This path has a great future if continuity between kindergartens, schools and institutes is found.

Learning native words

The situation is completely different if instruction is conducted in two dialects considered native to a particular community. In Russian establishments, this phenomenon can only be found in some regions.

In Europe, bilingual education is more common. One of the subjects studied may be English, but for the peoples of Europe it is easier to learn:

• the alphabet is almost the same (it is based on the Latin alphabet);
• the roots of words are similar in European dialects, which makes memorization easier;
• the absence of barriers to crossing the borders of other European countries leads to the development of tourism and more active communication in English.

So for Europeans, English has become almost native; it is much easier to meet a native speaker in Europe than in Russia. Therefore, it is also easier to invite him to work at school.

In our country, a similar principle of education can be seen in Tatarstan or neighboring former republics of the USSR. Thus, in Kazakhstan, starting from kindergarten, classes are conducted alternately in Kazakh and Russian.

This is done so that children in the future can communicate with representatives of Russia and other former republics, but also own their original family.

How is this implemented?

The principle of constructing lessons in bilingual institutions is the same. It is most effective if classes are taught exclusively by native speakers, with lessons and communication alternating.

Children should also address teachers and talk to each other in two dialects. Some institutions install certain days weeks for everyone.

So, on Monday everyone can study only English, and on Tuesday they can speak only French. This principle also applies to national dialects.

To consolidate speaking skills, songs, tongue twisters, proverbs, and poems are used. A special place is occupied by the celebration of national dates of the country whose culture is being studied.

In this regard, in Russian schools teachers face important task: not only teach children to speak, but also preserve a sense of national identity.

Bilingual education has its place and should be developed. But for it to have a future, it is necessary to ensure continuity between educational institutions of such a type.

See you later, friends!