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1. LANGUAGE LEARNING
First, the most obvious advantage of a bilingual school is that it greatly facilitates the learning of a second language. Indeed, language acquisition is effortless for young children, due to their very high brain plasticity. This is particularly true for oral communication: early exposure to the sounds of a language makes it possible to speak it without accent. (“L’apprentissage de plusieurs langues”, Naître et Grandir)
But the linguistic advantage does not stop there: being immersed in a bilingual environment from school onwards also allows children to better master their mother tongue. Thus, a child enrolled in a bilingual French-English school will have a better command of French than if he or she had been enrolled in a French-only school. (“Bilinguisme, Multilinguisme et Education”, interview de Bruno Della Chiesa, linguiste enseignant à Harvard)
Finally, learning a second language in a bilingual school makes it easier for children to learn other foreign languages later on. This is the result of a better understanding of the general mechanisms of language through the simultaneous learning of two languages at an early age. (L’Enfant aux deux langues, Claude Hagège, Odile Jacob editions)
2. COGNITIVE AND SOCIO-EMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Being enrolled in a bilingual school does not only have advantages in terms of learning English and other languages. All learning is promoted through bilingual education, including socio-emotional development.
"Many studies have revealed the cognitive advantages of bilinguals over monolinguals[in terms of] memorization or mental flexibility."
explains in this article Nawal Abboub, PhD in neuroscience applied to education.
Children who have attended bilingual schools also increase their ability to solve logic problems and improve their ability to abstract, due to more connections in their brains between concepts, words and symbols.
And that's not all: recent research has also shown that bilingual children develop a greater capacity for empathy, that is, they put themselves more easily in the shoes of others.
3. OPENNESS TO THE WORLD
In a world where international exchanges are more and more numerous, mastering several languages, and in particular English, has become a necessity! Allowing children to get used to hearing and speaking it from an early age gives them a major asset for easy integration into today's society.
It also makes them aware of the existence of multiple countries, multiple cultures, and sharpens their curiosity about the world around them, making them comfortable in a multicultural environment and more open to otherness.