As the world becomes an increasingly global, multicultural place, our children are going to need greater cultural competency to succeed in business. They’ll need to not only speak multiple languages, but also to understand how to relate to and interact with people of differing cultural backgrounds. How then can schools and instructors help impart invaluable skills and competencies to tomorrow’s business leaders? Not all of us can afford to send our children to far-off locales and immerse them in languages and cultures, of course, but what is within driving distance for many of us today are dual language immersion programs.
Dual immersion programs, which are typically embedded in ordinary elementary schools, allow students to learn to read and write in two languages at the same time. A typical classroom consists of a mix of native English speakers and students whose first language is Spanish, Mandarin or another language. This dynamic learning environment provides students with precisely the skills that will enable them to succeed in business and other careers. In fact, research has shown that students who are fully bilingual can expect to earn 10% to 15% more in the workplace than their monolingual peers.
I recently spoke with Linda Schuler, principal of Bancroft Elementary School in the Mount Diablo Unified School District in California. She helped launch an English-Spanish dual immersion program for kindergarteners in 2014 and immediately began seeing how students benefit from the program. “They have amplified educational and professional prospects,” Schuler told me. “They have an edge because they are biliterate and have been exposed to so much more.” Schuler’s students initially tend to feel overwhelmed, she says, and teachers must use a lot of visuals, actions, and movements to help them get comfortable with a non-native language. But the rewards are well worth the struggle.
Here are six reasons that dual language immersion programs set students up for success:
1) Dual immersion promotes improved attention and memory: Research has shown that students who are bilingual have an enhanced ability to concentrate and retain what they’re learning. The reason? Being bilingual at an early age appears to significantly alter the brain’s structure. In fact, as the brain is juggling two languages, the brain is forced to sharpen its ability to focus and ignore irrelevant information. Consequently, the brain gets better at processing sounds, especially in the presence of background noise.
2) Dual immersion improves cognitive health: Research has shown that being bilingual can delay the onset of age-related dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease, by up to four years. Scientists theorize that bilingual speakers may have increased blood and oxygen flow to the brain, keeping nerve connections healthy and thus helping to ward off dementia. Furthermore, research indicates that bilingual individuals who experience a traumatic brain injury tend to have higher odds of recovering when their rehabilitation includes using both languages.
3) Dual immersion gives entrepreneurs a competitive edge: In the business world, we succeed when we’re able to form meaningful, personal connections with our prospective buyers. Knowing a second language dramatically increases the size of our buyer pool right in our own backyard. Furthermore, when we know a second language, we’re able to travel to other countries, which exponentially expands the size of our buyer pool. Finally, thinking in a second language actually makes us more likely to make rational decisions; researchers say what’s happening is that people tend to think more deliberatively and less intuitively in a foreign language, which promotes rational decision-making.
4) Dual immersion promotes cultural competency and awareness: Dual immersion programs don’t just expose students to a second language; students also become immersed in other cultures and learn directly alongside peers whose cultural heritage might be very different from their own. “We not only celebrate language, but also celebrate cultures and learn about different cultures through literature, etc.,” Principal Schuler told me. Cultural competency and awareness, of course, strengthen an entrepreneur’s social skills, enabling them to interact comfortably and authentically with a much wider swath of potential buyers.
5) Dual immersion helps students to work together as a team: In a dual immersion environment, any given student is going to be stronger in one language than the other. This facilitates students to work together as a team; for example, native Spanish speakers will need to help their native English counterparts during the Spanish portions of classroom instruction, and the reverse will be true during the English portions of the instruction. Learning how to collaborate well with others, of course, is exactly what these students will be required to do in the business world. Furthermore, relying on peers for daily help promotes greater open-mindedness and acceptance—in other words, students learn a growth mindset that is essential for long-term success in business.
6) Dual immersion encourages students to synthesize information: In dual immersion programs, students are exposed to a certain proportion of each language at various grade levels and times. At Bancroft Elementary in California, for example, Principal Schuler told me that there are two teachers—one speaks exclusively Spanish to the students, and the other speaks exclusively English, with students switching teachers throughout the day and/or week. Consequently, students must synthesize a tremendous amount of information from two different teachers speaking two different languages to master their learning. This ability to synthesize information and synchronize concepts from two distinct sources also is an invaluable skill in the business world.
The research is clear that dual immersion improves long-term academic outcomes for students. They outperform their peers on standardized testing, regardless of socioeconomic status or ethnicity. They also outperform their peers in areas like divergent thinking, pattern recognition, and problem-solving. And they tend to be more motivated in school and more passionate about pursuing higher education. Students benefit from improved attention and memory, better cognitive health, the ability to connect meaningfully with people of different backgrounds, increased cultural competency, and stronger teamwork and information synthesis skills.
If we want to build healthier, smarter and more successful entrepreneurs and business minded children… look for the dual immersion program within your area. A huge congrats to the teachers (Elle Velasquez, Kathline Gomes, Lorena Stiles, Adriana Giron, Lisa Johnson, Vanesa Ponce, & MDUSD Director- Jose Espinoza) at Bancroft Elementary and the many other dual immersion instructors helping to build tomorrow’s leaders today. And doing so one word at a time!