[3] Monolingualism is thus rarely the subject of scholarly publications, as it is viewed to be an unmarked or prototypical concept where it has the sense of being normal and multilingualism is the exception.
The same study also found that bilinguals, in a version of the letter fluency task that placed more demand on executive control, performed better than monolinguals.
Thus, once vocabulary abilities were controlled, bilinguals performed better on letter fluency possibilities by the enhanced frontal executive processes in the brain.
In fact, outside factors such as socioeconomic status and cultural differences always helped monolinguals, making the argument the bilingualism contributes to cognitive reserve even stronger (Bialystok et al., 2012).
A probable explanation for this phenomenon is that knowledge of multiple languages keeps the brain alert and therefore more mentally aware for a longer period of time.
A study conducted with children in their early school years suggested that there are emotional and behavioural benefits to being bilingual.
The non-English monolingual children had the highest level of externalizing and internalizing behavioral problems by fifth grade (around 10–11 years of age), even though the children were all measured to have similar levels of internalizing and externalizing behavioral problems at the start[clarification needed].
However, if there is a supportive school environment with teachers who are experienced in ESL (English as a Second Language), children seem to have better emotional constitution.
However, evidence from a research study shows that bilinguals have a faster reaction time in most working memory tasks.
Early bilingual learners showed that they simply responded most efficiently to the task at hand.
The research takes into consideration factors like the similarity of the language, the cultural background and education experience.
Results show that in the child's early stage, multilingual kids are very different from one another in their language and cognitive skills development, and also when compared to monolingual children.
Conversations in which one party speaks a language different from the other persons both are hard to maintain and have reduced intimacy.
The predominance of English in many sectors, such as world trade, technology and science, has contributed to English-speaking societies being persistently monolingual, as there is little incentive to learn a second language if all dealings can be done in their native language;[17] that is especially the case for English-speakers in the United States, particularly the Northern United States and most of the Southern United States, where everyday contact with other languages, such as Spanish and French is usually limited.
[18] Nevertheless, the requirement for all school children to learn a foreign language in some English speaking countries and areas works against this to some extent.
"[19] Snow and Hakuta[16] write that in a cost-benefit analysis, the choosing of English as the official and national language often comes with additional costs on the society, as the alternative choice of multilingualism has its own benefits.
[20] Lawrence Summers, in an article published in The New York Times,[21] discusses how to prepare for the future advancement of America.
A week later, The New York Times hosted a discussion among six panelists,[22] all of whom were for learning foreign languages and cited the benefits and advantages and the changing global landscape.