Episode 42: Thinking Outside our Walls
Engaging, challenging, and empowering parents in raising well-rounded children through combining educational research to everyday life.
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on today’s episode…
Why is it important for kids to learn about cultures and languages beyond their own? How can you embrace diversity in your home? In this episode, Dr. Cagle challenges you to think outside your own walls.
insights
Do you speak a foreign language? PLEASE teach it to your kids!
According to an article called, “Why Bilinguals are Smarter” in the New York Times in 2012, there are several research-based benefits to kids being bilingual, and I wanted to share 3 with you:
1. practical benefits in an increasingly globalized world.
2. makes you smarter. It can have a profound effect on your brain, improving cognitive skills not related to language and even protect against dementia in old age.
3. Findings vary on speech delays, but overall, suggest that even if a child experiences speech delays, it isn’t for a long time.
In addition to these research-based findings, I want to include two more vantage points.
My own experiences as a Spanish teacher:
As a Spanish teacher, kids wished their parents taught them.
As a mom:
My kids answer back in English
Raising bilingual kids:
My kids 99.99% of the time respond in English.
It’s HARD to be intentional to talk in Portuguese
What I’ve witnessed with my now 17 year old nephew
A word of encouragement if you’re not bilingual and want to learn a foreign language or have a child enrolled in a bilingual school:
Immersion is the way to go!!!
Does your kid play soccer with Spanish speakers? have them learn a few words and practice them!
Grocery store? Practice veggies, fruit, and other items
Janitor at the gym?
Nail salon technician?
A friend in class?
Planning a trip to a foreign country? Get apps, books, get on YouTube.
Explore! Increase your curiosity to commit to a difficult task!
Whether you find yourself as a bilingual (teach your kids your primary language, pleaseee) or as a language learner yourself, be intentional in raising “smarter kids,” as cited in the New York Times article.
Reference
https://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/18/opinion/sunday/the-benefits-of-bilingualism.html
