SDLC 105: Learning Journal 9

[Tenaya Bien]

In the two readings from this week, they discussed the idea that being bilingual may or may not make you "smarter". The New York Times article outlines that the ability to switch between tasks or to stay focused on a singular tasks and ignore distractions because of practice the brain has doing this between multiple languages. The second article also agrees that bilinguals do show higher executive functions, however, that does not make them smarter necessarily. Mostly this second article clarifies that the term "smarter" does not qualify or disqualify certain cognitive abilities acquired by being bilingual.