• Гідрологія і Гідрометрія
• Господарське право
• Економіка будівництва
• Економіка природокористування
• Економічна теорія
• Земельне право
• Історія України
• Кримінально виконавче право
• Медична радіологія
• Методи аналізу
• Міжнародне приватне право
• Міжнародний маркетинг
• Основи екології
• Предмет Політологія
• Соціальне страхування
• Технічні засоби організації дорожнього руху
• Товарознавство продовольчих товарів

Read the text and find an answer to the question: Why bilinguals are smarter?

Speaking two languages rather than just one has obvious practical benefits in an increasingly globalized world. But in recent years, scientists have begun to show that the advantages of bilingualism are even more fundamental than being able to converse with a wider range of people. Being bilingual, it turns out, makes you smarter. It can have a profound effect on your brain, improving cognitive skills not related to language.

This view of bilingualism is remarkably different from the understanding of bilingualism through much of the 20th century. Researchers, educators and policy makers long considered a second language to be an interference, cognitively speaking, that hindered a child’s academic and intellectual development.

However, the collective evidence from a number of studies suggests that the bilingual experience improves the brain’s so-called executive function — a command system that directs the attention processes that we use for planning, solving problems and performing various other mentally demanding tasks. These processes include ignoring distractions to stay focused, switching attention willfully from one thing to another and holding information in mind — like remembering a sequence of directions while driving.

The key difference between bilinguals and monolinguals may be more basic: a heightened ability to monitor the environment. “Bilinguals have to switch languages quite often — you may talk to your father in one language and to your mother in another language,” says Albert Costa, a researcher at the University of Pompeu Fabra in Spain. “It requires keeping track of changes around you in the same way that we monitor our surroundings when driving.” In a study comparing German-Italian bilinguals with Italian monolinguals on monitoring tasks, Mr. Costa and his colleagues found that the bilingual subjects not only performed better, but they also did so with less activity in parts of the brain involved in monitoring, indicating that they were more efficient at it.

The bilingual experience appears to influence the brain from infancy to old age (and there is reason to believe that it may also apply to those who learn a second language later in life). Nobody ever doubted the power of language. But who would have imagined that the words we hear and the sentences we speak might be leaving such a deep imprint?

(the source: adapted from: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/18/opinion/sunday/the-benefits-of-bilingualism.html )

Читайте також:

1. A) Choose the correct answer.
2. A. Listen to James describing his family situation and answer the questions.
3. A. Sarah and Ken are having an argument. Read what Sarah says and complete the dialogue with Ken’s answers from the box below. Then try to guess his last answer.
4. A. Solve the quiz and check your answers.
5. Add question-tags and give full answers to the questions.
6. Answer apply be forget listen live lose make read try use
7. Answer the following questions
8. Answer the following questions about the text.
9. Answer the following questions about yourself, your friends and your ideas about friendship.
10. Answer the following questions.
11. Answer the following questions.
12. Answer the following questions.

Переглядів: 532