Beyond English

Discover the other benefits of learning a second language — or three or four

There is a very good reason why parents should ensure their children learn additional languages, said Carole Bonin. As Canada becomes more diverse, today’s students will grow up engaging in a different world.

“When we allow students to learn languages, which is really the fundamental of engaging with someone else, we are setting them up for success as adults,” she said. “We need to be responsive to this new mosaic that is Canada.”

Bonin is the president of the Canadian Association of Second Language Teachers, an organization which supports those teaching additional languages across the country — everything from Arabic and Mandarin to Spanish and French.

“It is becoming a misnomer now to say second language because with immigration and the diversity we see in Canada, a lot of our students — and adults as well — already speak more than two languages,” said Bonin.

Norman Gaudet is the head of the Toronto French School, one of several private schools in Ontario and across Canada where learning in a bilingual environment, or teaching additional languages, is an integral part of their curriculum.

“The majority of our students come from families who see the benefits of bilingualism,” said Gaudet, whose school goes from pre-school to Grade 12. “I think it is a myth, which has been researched for some time, that a certain student is more apt to learn a language. What research has been showing is that any student can learn a second language.”

Gaudet said his students have the option of learning French for the full school day, or in a combination with English. Up until Grade 7, it also accepts students who are first being introduced to French and will learn it at an accelerated rate for a year so they can quickly catch up to the other students.

He said they are several benefits to being able to speak two or more languages, including increased academic and career opportunities.

“The term that we use is that this is like a superpower that you have been given to speak these two languages. So now the question is, ‘How do you use that to your advantage?’ What we do is expose them to things that students who are unilingual may not be able to do.”

One example, Gaudet said, is model United Nations. An anglophone student can only attend those competitions in one language, but students from the Toronto French School can also compete in those in francophone countries and communities — exposing them to different styles of debating and points of view.

“They will grow in a way a student who is unilingual may not have that opportunity to do. And it is very competitive world. Our students, being able to speak both languages, are given a number of experiences they can use to grow and use in the next phase of their education or careers.”

Both Gaudet and Bonin also point to research that has shown that students who are bilingual have their brain structured differently — which has several benefits, not only in academics.

“They are more focused and able to better pinpoint relevant details,” said Bonin. “The fact someone is operating in an additional language means they are absorbing all this information and that they are using their critical thinking skills all the time.

“That is a huge benefit, especially in a world where we are being lobed with all this information. We need those skills to deduce what is accurate and what isn’t accurate, what is biased and what isn’t biased.”

In Canada, some of that research into language education and bilingualism is being conducted by Dr. Ellen Bialystok, a distinguished research professor of psychology at York University. She said there is a difference between being completely bilingual and knowing other languages, but that both are beneficial.

“There are some very simple reasons you should know two languages. It gives you access to cultures and people and information that you would not have if you didn’t speak it,” she said. “So, knowing another language is really important, even if you don’t learn them to high degrees of proficiency.

“Being bilingual is a cognitive and neurological experience that changes the way the brain works and that only happens after considerable, ongoing experiences in using both languages.”

Bialystok said several myths exist in society about learning languages that are simply not true: that a child needs to learn a second language by a certain age, that learning two languages too early means you won’t master either, or that at least one parent needs to know the language their child is learning, or they won’t succeed at it.

“There is a lot out there, I could rattle off a list of eight or 10 things people believe that are false,” she said.

Gaudet also said it is not necessary for one parent to speak French for students to succeed at his school — where about 85 per cent of its students are anglophones or Francophiles (a person who admires all things French).

“It is a question we get asked when I have two English speaking parents in front of me and wondering, ‘Well, how am I going to help out child?’” he said. “The reality is that we have been around for about 60 years, and we have built our program around knowing that they would not get that support at home.”