Multilingual middle school students are excelling, with their academic scores improving and far out, new research has revealed.
American schools have long lagged behind those in other countries in terms of language education.
A misconception that children who are multilingual perform more poorly has followed, despite abundant research demonstrating the cognitive benefits of learning and speaking more than one tongue.
Now, research from New York University and Oregon State University has shown multilingual students are making academic gains in reading and mathematics – at double or triple the rates of their English-only-speaking peers.
Fourth and eighth graders that spoke multiple languages improved test their scores at two- and three-fold the rate of others, according to new New York University research
There are almost five million ELL – English Language Learner – students in the US, accounting for about 10 percent of children and adolescents in public schools.
And those numbers are only estimated to continue to grow.
Only between 15 and 20 percent of Americans identify as bilingual – let alone multilingual – which translates to a dire shortage of teachers equipped to educate students in any language but English, and even fewer qualified to integrate multiple languages into the classroom.
Despite these disadvantages, multilingual American students are flourishing, as documented by the new study.
Between 2003 and 2015 American students remarkably got better at everything, according to the new study – even as the 2008 financial crisis saw school’s de-funded and teachers struggling to avoid destitution.
And no group progressed so impressively as multilingual students, whose scores showed improvements two- and three-fold the gains made by English-only speakers.
Multilingual students in fourth grade improved their reading scores by 25 percent, and their math skills by 27 percent. For eighth graders, the jumps were even more dramatic: they did 37 and 39 percent better, respectively, on their reading and math tests.
The study authors describe multilingual students as a ‘subgroup’ of English learners, whose proficiency gets masked when they are lumped together with students who are still working to learn English.
‘By definition, ELs are not yet proficient in listening, speaking, reading, or writing English, and their language skills impact their performance on content-area assessments administered in English,’ but the same does not hold true for those who have a firm grasp on multiple languages, including English.
Karen Thompson, study co-author, says she and her fellow educational and linguistic researchers call this issue a ‘revolving door,’ or a ‘gap that never closes’ between those who are current English learners and those who were once in that category but have since become proficient in English.
So the gains made by students that transition from one category to the other do not get counted, and their academic achievements go unrecognized.
In fact, scientific studies of the brain suggest children and adults with good command of multiple languages have many cognitive advantages that lend themselves to better academic performance, too.
Many years ago, scientists theorized – rather simplistically – that two conflicting vocabularies would cause children’s development to be delayed.
The opposite turns out to be true.
Multilingual people may have a ‘cognitive advantage…research suggests being able to direct your attention and ignore information or understand the arbitrariness of a sign can confer an advantage in learning to read,’ sad Thompson.
People who are multilingual have more gray matter in the region of the brain called the inferior parietal cortex. This is thought to foster greater plasticity, or mental flexibility.
Cognitive plasticity is known to be key to learning, memory and the brain’s executive functioning.
So, it is no coincidence, then, that students with extra language skills – and, therefore, extra brain matter – excel in educational settings.
Similarly, scientists have found links between multilingualism and delayed onset of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, leading advocate Fabrice Jaumont, education attaché at the French Embassy in New York, to tell Frenchly: ‘In the end, being multilingual is a public health issue. We have to invest massively in this kind of education.’
The US has finally begun to invest a bit in multilingualism, and ‘dual language programs increased dramatically’ between 2003 and 2015, when the study’s data was collected, Thompson said.
What’s more, research on dual-language programs is still in its earliest days, but suggests the approach shows great promise – for both English learners and native English speakers, providing real-world evidence of the brain plasticity neuroscientists have observed.
Thompson notes that ‘it is important to remember that the scores of multilingual students are still below those of monolingual students, but most are students of color, they are economically disadvantaged, they face strong disadvantages and less resources.
‘The fact that despite all that, there is growth, that suggests that there may be some advantages to policies and that multilingual students can achieve at high levels.’