Learning Journal #9

[Omer Genosar]

          I agreed with the scienceline article when it comes to bilingualism. When I think about it, executive function is definitely not the same thing as intelligence and it only represents one positive of bilingualism. On the negative side, a decreased vocabulary in both languages definitely seems both logically and personally accurate. For most of my life and even until today, I believe that my learning of English while I was still figuring out Hebrew severely hampered my growth in both. Up to today, whenever I try to talk in either Hebrew or English I come across many words that feel as if they had just escaped me. I say the phrase “that thing” so often that those who know me well, are very much used to the game of charades that they sometimes have to play with me in order to figure out what I am talking about. This phenomenon is exactly the reason that I am taking the self-directed language course, I have so many nouns and words missing from my vocabulary that should naturally be there but are for some reason missing. If I know 9/10 words in a sentence, how come I do not know the 10^th? Regardless, this may be an overly pessimistic viewpoint. Of course the advantages of bilingualism is very helpful in this global world and for critical thinking due to the positive affect it has on the executive function of the brain.