Communities Benefit from Multilingualism

All around the world, wherever there are minorities, there is the issue of multilingualism. People who immigrate to a certain country wish, after a while, to be able to communicate with authorities in their native tongue, which they say will make it a lot easier for them to follow rules and get along with their neighbors. Indeed, in some nations, even street signs are spelled out in various languages, which significantly reduces the number of accidents in certain areas. However, there are still countries that consider multilingualism bad, as an affront to the national pride.

Indeed, these are the nations where intolerance reigns supreme, and where people would rather die than accept that the person next to them is different, regardless of how. Such level of phobia towards strangers of creed, race, or tongue can only be achieved through years and years of indoctrination, during which time parents keep telling their offspring that the members of a certain religion or ethnic group are bad just because they are different.

In England, for example, there are such locations as complementary schools, which offer students an after-school language program designed to increase their knowledges in various other languages. The management at these institutions says that this way of growing up, subjected to the influences of all cultures and languages, is what will eventually make the ultimate tolerant adult, and not blank lectures held in classes about how kids should accept one another over race and religion.

“It is rare to find an environment where two or more languages are used in teaching and learning. Teachers and young people move between languages, and our findings show that the children are proud of their flexible language skills. One Turkish boy told us he was learning four languages and loved being able to show off to his friends,” Educational Linguistics professor Angela Creese, from the University of Birmingham, who has led a scientific study on the issue of multilingualism and its benefits, says.

The results have clearly showed that even minority group children are better off learning about the heritage and the culture of their race or creed by attending classes, rather than by remaining at home, under the strict surveillance of their family, and without contact with other children their age. “They need to learn with other kids, to see how other children learn, their attitudes, and so on. Then, they can decide for themselves what kind of person they should be,” a Chinese mother has told the research team during the study.