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Distribution of the scores of sociolinguistic diversity for bilinguals and monolinguals (left graph) and socio-economic status (SES) for children from schools in slum and non-slum areas (right graph). Purple areas reflect the overlap between the two groups on the sociolinguistic diversity or SES scores.
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Multilingualism and linguistic diversity are the norm in India. Although studies have shown a relation between bilingualism and cognitive gains, linguistic diversity has as of yet been ignored as a potential factor affecting cognitive skills. This study aims to fill this gap by examining how cognitive skills - as measured by the n-back and Raven's...
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Context 1
... 2. Overview of the average scores on the cognitive tasks and the questionnaires (SES = socioeconomic status; SD = standard deviation). When examining the overlap between the measures obtained from our questionnaires compared to the more traditional, binary measures of bilingualism in the home (yes/no) and school site (slum/non-slum) in Figure 2, it can be seen that these binary measures have difficulties capturing the diversity displayed by the sample of children. More specifically, although one might expect children from bilingual homes to have higher sociolinguistic diversity scores than those from monolingual homes, there was considerable overlap in sociolinguistic diversity scores between the two groups, as shown by the area shaded in purple. ...
Citations
... The cognitive outcomes associated with multilingualism are influenced by various factors, including proficiency level, age of acquisition, and frequency of language use. For instance, research by Tsimpli et al. (2020) indicates that individuals who acquire multiple languages early in life tend to exhibit ...
... Practical strategies include immersive language environments, bilingual education programs, and the incorporation of task-switching exercises in language lessons. According to Tsimpli et al. (2020), integrating activities that require students to alternate between languages helps reinforce cognitive flexibility and promotes better overall cognitive functioning. Additionally, language learning programs that encourage active problem-solving and critical thinking in a multilingual context can further enhance cognitive development. ...
This paper explores the relationship between multilingualism and cognitive flexibility, examining the cognitive benefits associated with managing multiple languages. Drawing on both neuroscientific and linguistic studies, the paper argues that multilingual individuals exhibit enhanced cognitive flexibility, superior executive control functions, and improved task-switching abilities. These advantages, often referred to as the "bilingual advantage," extend beyond language use and positively impact problem-solving, decision-making, and mental adaptability. The paper also highlights the long-term benefits of multilingualism, such as delayed cognitive decline and greater neuroplasticity, particularly in older adults. Furthermore, it addresses the practical implications of promoting multilingual education inearly childhood to enhance cognitive development and foster global citizenship. The paper concludes with suggestions for future research, emphasizing the need for interdisciplinary collaboration to further understand the cognitive and societal impacts of multilingualism.
... Immigrants and minorities' linguistically diverse families are increasingly focusing on how to nurture, boost, and help their children retain their mother tongue, as well as how to provide latelearning families with assistive housing. When applied in schools, multilingual instruction will enhance quality education by improving cognitive abilities and promoting academic accomplishment by allowing for the exchange of skills, strategies, knowledge, and assets [7,8]. ...
This essay delves into the role of multilingual education in promoting and sustaining linguistic diversity within educational institutions. In a world where language endangerment is a growing concern, multilingual education presents an opportunity to integrate heritage and community languages into mainstream schooling, thus preserving cultural identities and fostering inclusivity. By analyzing the benefits of using local languages as mediums of instruction, this essay highlights the cognitive, social, and economic advantages of multilingual education. The discussion extends to the challenges of implementation, particularly the need for teacher training and resource allocation. Case studies from various regions, including Ghana and Guatemala, illustrate successful strategies and best practices in multilingual education, emphasizing the importance of context-specific approaches in diverse linguistic environments.
... Research investigating the link between cognition and language also provides some evidence of the influence of passive linguistic exposure. Tsimpli et al. (2020) found that socioeconomically disadvantaged primary school children from monolingual households in India have an advantage in fluid intelligence as an effect of sociolinguistic diversity in their school and community settings. Beatty-Martínez et al. (2020) demonstrated that an individual's sociocultural language experiences extend to non-linguistic executive control as a direct consequence of the context within which the language practice of codeswitching is enacted (also see Beatty-Martínez and Dussias, 2017). ...
The language sciences have made concerted efforts to emphasize the impact of sociolinguistic context on shaping a person’s language repertoire and associated (neuro)cognitive adaptations, largely propelled by WEIRD-centric research and perspectives. Active engagement with known languages is necessary for acquisition, but input from the ambient environment is typically not addressed, or is considered noise. While irregular and transient linguistic information may indeed be noise, there is a missing middle-ground pertaining to language knowledge that falls between explicit input and linguistic noise, primarily observed in highly linguistically diverse contexts. I consider this missing form of input by making a case for Contextual Linguistic Diversity, the view that one’s linguistic repertoire is not solely constituted by the active use of, or intentional engagement with, languages but also by passive and regular exposure to ambient linguistic input. I offer a theoretical foundation and appeal to existing evidence supporting the view that passive exposure to multiple languages may systematically affect linguistic and (neuro)cognitive abilities, even in the absence of proficiency in or awareness of ambient languages. Adopting a holistic view of contextually influenced linguistic experiences is essential to fairly representing all individuals in their respective sociolinguistic contexts and consequently advancing the field.
... This is particularly true of the urban poor learners living and studying in slum and non-slum areas. Sociolinguistic diversity and the inevitable reality of multilingualism for the average individual in India can have a positive impact on the resilience children develop because they are often compelled to negotiate complex circumstances to earn a livelihood (Tsimpli et al., 2020b). This typically translates into an ability to learn and use new languages in school, home and communities relatively effortlessly and as a matter of shared habit. ...
... Indeed, several studies investigating language mixing or translanguaging in India's classrooms confirm that lessons are delivered in multiple languages and that English as the Medium of Instruction (EMI) schools present a higher degree of code-switching and translanguaging (Lightfoot et al., submitted;Pal & Panda, 2020;Tsimpli et al., 2020b). Against this background, the present study investigates the role of language use in the classroom in order to evaluate its potential role in the microstructural aspects of children's narratives. ...
... Crucially for our study, children's level of deprivation at the SES level was informative with respect to the lack of English in the home environment or the community and the minimal home literacy support children were expected to receive. Many of the children, particularly from slum areas, are 'first generation learners', i.e. children whose parents are not literate in any language (Tsimpli et al. 2020b). We can therefore rather safely conclude that children's opportunities for additional support with school skill development is minimal or unavailable. ...
This volume collects research on language, cognition, and communication in multilingualism. Apart from theoretical concerns including grammatical description, language-specific analyses, and modeling of multilingualism, different fields of study and research interests center around three core themes: The Early Years (aspects of language acquisition and development, including vernaculars or minority languages, reading, writing, and cognition, and multilingual extensions), Issues in Everyday Life (the role of multilingualism in and for speech–language–communication difficulties, including diagnosis, provisions of services, and later language breakdown), and From the Past to the Future (aspects of multilingualism beyond acquisition, education, or pathology, with a focus on heritage languages and translanguaging). Specialists from each of these areas introduce state-of-the-art research, novel experimental studies, and/or quantitative as well as qualitative data bearing on ‘multifaceted multilingualism’. There is a broad spectrum for take-home messages, ranging from new theoretical analyses or approaches to assess multilingual speakers all the way to recommendations for policy-makers.
... Therefore, it is of particular importance for educational systems to promote the status and development of linguistic repertoires considered as linguistic varieties (languages) available to the community (Beaco & Byram, 2003;Lüdi, 2021). Furthermore, research has shown that bilingualism and multilingualism enhance students' cognitive abilities (Baker, 2000;Boumeester et al., 2019;Cummins, 1989;Krashen, 1996;Mehisto & Marsh, 2018;Tsimpli et al., 2020). ...
The main objective of this study is to assess the Spanish literacy competence of students enrolled in bilingual and trilingual programs by analyzing the developmental process and evolutionary course of reading during the first cycle of Primary Education. This analysis aims to determine whether the reading skills in Spanish of students in multilingual schools are affected by immersion in a foreign language, in this case, English. To achieve this, a total of 258 second-grade primary students were examined, categorized into groups based on the number of languages they knew (two or three), in comparison to a control group of monolingual students. Two variables were measured: intelligence using the WISC-IV and literacy competence using the TALE. The results of both tests indicate that there are no significant differences in reading competence between bilingual and trilingual students and monolingual students. These results reinforce the idea that learning to read is a process not influenced by the number of languages spoken.
... This was done in order to assure comparability between the groups on more general linguistic and cognitive tasks. Additionally, previous studies have found that monolingual children perform better than bilinguals in receptive vocabulary tasks (e.g., Bialystok et al., 2009), or that bilingual children outperform monolinguals in tasks assessing their memory capacity (e.g., Blom et al., 2014) or their reasoning skills (e.g., Tsimpli et al., 2020). It could be assumed that the comprehension of non-canonical sentences is influenced by children's general knowledge of language and non-verbal reasoning ability and that memory capacity might modulate children's sentence processing (e.g., Arosio & Giustolisi, 2019;Arosio et al., 2010). ...
... Previous studies had also reported a higher performance by monolingual children in receptive vocabulary tests over bilingual children (e.g., Calvo & Bialystok, 2014;Chiat & Polišenská, 2016). The higher performance by bilinguals in the CPM task over monolinguals had equally been reported in previous studies (e.g., Tsimpli et al., 2020). The variables of language knowledge (measured by means of a receptive vocabulary and grammar tasks), memory capacity ...
... Moreover, India is multilinguistic, so the questionnaires may need to be adapted to regional languages to cater for a specific population. Studies have shown that parents of children from low-socioeconomic backgrounds, who often speak their native languages, can better report on their children when interviewed in that native language [96]. ...
Timely screening and surveillance of children for developmental delay and social-emotional learning difficulties are essential in Low-and Middle-Income Countries like India. Screening measures like the Parents' Evaluation of Developmental Status (PEDS) and Strength and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) are considered suitable for India due to their low cost, easy accessibility, and no training requirement for administration. However, India lacks validated screening measures, and the PEDS and SDQ have yet to be validated for children in India. The study aimed to translate the PEDS and SDQ from English to Hindi and psychometrically evaluate the same measures on children aged 4-8 years in India. The original PEDS and SDQ forms and their translations were pilot tested on 55 participants and evaluated using data from 407 children with typical development (TD) and 59 children with developmental disability (DD). Parents and teachers reported no meaningful discrepancy between the original and translated (Hindi) questionnaires. Internal consistency for the PEDS was acceptable, but unacceptable for most subscales on the SDQ, for both TD and DD samples. Test-retest reliability was poor for the PEDS but adequate for the SDQ. Results from known-group validity testing showed that the PEDS scores could be used to distinguish between the TD and DD samples. The results from this study provide further support for the use of the PEDS and SDQ in developing countries like India.
... Further inquiry into teacher practices in multilingual classrooms and their impact on learning has led to the recommendation of acknowledging the use of mother tongue and other home languages for better support and facilitation of learning and language development and the need of formal teacher training in use of translanguaging pedagogy as a strategic tool (Durairajan, 2017;Anderson, 2022). The recent MultiLiLa project in India has also shown that learners from low SES backgrounds benefit from language mixing in EMI classes (Tsimpli et al 2019(Tsimpli et al , 2020a(Tsimpli et al , 2020b. Based on teacher-practices findings from MultiLiLa, Lightfoot et al. (2022) conducted an impact study of translingual pedagogy training on Indian teachers in Telangana. ...
Indian classrooms are multilingual by default though learners’ multilingual resources are not always utilized to their fullest potential. The aim was to develop comprehension and vocabulary knowledge in English of fifth-grade learners through the translanguaging pedagogy. For the present study, four participant English teachers from low SES government primary schools in Hyderabad were trained to design lesson plans based on the translanguaging reading model. The teachers were observed in four lessons, based on which narrative notes were written to understand the teachers’ translanguaging practices. The opportunities and challenges they faced while implementing the lesson plans were mapped through narrative notes of the classroom observations and teacher views expressed in semi- structured interviews. The findings of the study suggest that the teachers were able to integrate translingual strategies to develop vocabulary knowledge by using learners’ L1 knowledge and elicit meaning, as well as help them make inferences by using a variety of questions to draw links between text-based ideas and their schemata or background knowledge. The difficulties of implementing translanguaging steps in a systematic manner and lack of teachers’ reflecting habits were found to be significant challenges. The study has implications for teacher education and policy recommendations for promoting translanguaging pedagogy in multilingual contexts like India. It affirms that learners’ first languages are resources in the classroom that can pave a way for inclusivity and equity in education.
... Moreover, students from informal settings lack a supportive environment, which further aggravates their barriers towards understanding any particular subject and affects their social interaction (Tsimpli et al., 2020;Bennell, 2022;Rannaware, et al., 2022). However, nothing special has yet been done for the children from slums in education; results in this study will stand significant. ...
Classroom practices form an array of integrated teaching and learning strategies conducive to the real world. Lesser is known about the classroom practices experiences among the students belonging to the informal settlements in private schools of India. The paper presents a brief insight into barriers to classroom practices with a self-prepared assessment tool, namely Classroom Practice Position (CPP). It can aid teachers in prioritising practices for balancing participation in the classroom. The measure will help to determine the placement of classroom routine activities. The paper highlights the data from the perspectives of 58 students in Rourkela (a city in the State of Odisha, India) through a sequential exploratory method and data analysis with SPSS v.20. The CPP tool indicates that peer support from the well-performing students helps in mitigating stereotypes, in completion of classwork, identity and familiarity with teachers.
... However, if the child cannot understand the language, s/he might face social exclusion, bullying, racism, which would lead to depression, stress and cognitive impairments in turn (Birman, Trickett, & Buchanan, 2005;Coogan et al., 2020;Çelik & İçduygu, 2019;Steinberger & Barch, 2021). Moreover, it could be overwhelming for the displaced children to be immersed in a language other than their mother tongue while trying to catch up with their peers in the school, and they may fail to meet the objectives of the lessons due to the language barrier, which would eventually delay the cognitive development (Frumkin, 2013;Ibragimova & Tarasova, 2018;Tunga, Engin, & Çağıltay, 2020;Tsimpli et al., 2020). Such disadvantageous educational conditions may render refugee children behind their non-refugee peers in cognitive functioning (Gagné et al., 2018;Wilkinson, 2002). ...
War trauma is often accompanied by poor living conditions in the new environment in a manner preserving or even deteriorating the negative influences of war. Several researchers have investigated the refugee experiences of displaced children. Often they have focused on the detrimental effects of war on psychological well-being, mental health, educational settings, social adaptation, quality of nutrition, financial difficulties, safety and language learning experiences. Each of these effects has been proven to negatively affect cognitive abilities; however, the current study reviews the key studies to reveal the cognitive and linguistic outcomes of holding refugee status in the early childhood period. Doing this, we aim to reveal the adverse conditions that affect refugee children’s three core abilities of executive functions, namely working memory, inhibitory control and shifting. In addition to cognitive outcomes, we present the factors that may affect these children’s mother tongue development and their experiences with the language spoken in the host country in the context of schooling. This study suggests that refugee children should be assessed for their cognitive and language abilities after arriving in the country of resettlement so that their needs can be identified and addressed effectively. Caretakers should also be given both psychological and financial support to enrich their children’s language and cognitive input. Also, the outcomes of the research in this field should be effectively shared with different stakeholders from the caregivers and teachers of the refugee children to the NGOs and policymakers responsible to take solid actions to counter the adverse effects of displacement.
