Being bilingual can help keep your brain in good condition

A silohuette of a side profile of a womans head inside her head space is a ocean sunset

Learning and understanding a new language is one of the most challenging things that your brain can do. But as well as the advantage of acquiring another language, it appears that the effort of giving your brain a good workout today by being bilingual could keep it in better condition in later life.

Research led by Dr. Daniela Perani, a professor of psychology at in Milan, found that people who speak two or more languages seem to weather the ravages of Alzheimer’s disease better compared to people who have only mastered one language. Alzheimer’s is a progressive mental deterioration that can begin in middle or old age due to generalized brain degeneration.

The study involved 85 people with Alzheimer’s – half of whom spoke both German and Italian and half who spoke only one language. The researchers found that bilingual patients had greater connectivity in key brain areas. This was especially in the part of the brain that governs “executive control” – a set of necessary behavioral cognitive processes that include problem-solving, working memory, reasoning and attentional control. The study also noted that the bilingual Alzheimer’s patients showed less severe symptoms of the disease.

The study concluded: “Our findings suggest that the effects of speaking two languages are more powerful than both age and education in providing a protection against cognitive decline.”

Bilingualism and the brain

Although Alzheimer’s disease is currently incurable, the study supports a popular theory that people who have higher levels of education function longer with little manifestation of the illness. Part of the reason why bilingual brains may be better at resisting Alzheimer’s could be due to a lifetime of switching between languages daily.

Learning and speaking more than one language changes how the brain carries out tasks that require focus and concentration on a certain piece of information without being distracted. It can also increase the density of white matter (connections) in the brain, meaning that there are more connections between brain parts, thus making this part of the brain more resistant to degeneration.

This is supported by a study conducted by a team led by Professor Ana Inés Ansaldo at the , which suggests that bilingual people have more robust and more efficient brains compared to those who only speak one language. This is one of the reasons why a bilingual brain can be a buffer against aging and dementia.

They recruited elderly people, half of whom spoke only one language and the other half who had learned a second language between the ages of 11 and 18. All performed equally well on a task that involved focusing on an object's color while ignoring its position, but brain scans revealed a big difference in how they processed the task.

“While bilinguals were recruiting very specific brain areas and a small number of areas to perform the task, monolinguals were recruiting a much larger number of areas that were consuming much more resources. And the networks they were using were very, very complex,” says Professor Ansaldo. “That led us to think that the bilingual brain was more efficient in terms of the amount of resources that bilingual people require to do complex tasks as opposed to the monolingual brain.”

The study concludes that bilingualism shapes the brain in a different way or how people approach complex tasks. It could be because bilinguals must inhibit the language they are not using to focus on the one that they are using.

Read our other blog post on about how language learning can help your mental health and wellbeing.

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  • Two children looking over a book together

    How to motivate reluctant readers

    By Sue Alderman

    Reading in English can be one of the most challenging activities for young learners and teenagers, especially when they don’t get much enjoyment from reading in their own language.

    These four reading strategies are fun, high-energy, and educational ways of getting even the most reluctant students involved in your reading lessons.

    1. Bring outside interests into the classroom

    Many students find it hard to get enthused by the reading texts used in their classrooms; they might feature complex vocabulary, be too generic, or just not resonate with their interests. An effective way of reaching out to the more reluctant readers in the class is to use reading materials related to the media they enjoy engaging with in their leisure time.

    app’s graded Readers provides an ideal opportunity for bringing popular movie culture into your learners’ reading skills development. All of the readers are designed specifically for use in the classroom and feature an integrated skills approach that reinforces vocabulary and helps develop language skills. The readers come with activities to complete throughout the book rather than at the end, and key vocabulary is highlighted and defined.

    Excitingly, most of our readers come with downloadable audio files (MP3s), so the students can listen along and hear the stories come to life. The audio can help students model pronunciation, get used to different accents and dialects, and make it even more accessible for students who are still less keen on reading.

    2. Gamify the reading experience

    By adding simple game dynamics and mechanics to your reading activities, you can add a competitive and fun element to your classes. This could help maintain the interest of learners who might otherwise lose enthusiasm.

    The “dictogloss” activity is a good way of adding that extra element as it uses a countdown timer and peer-to-peer interaction to make the reading more of a competitive game.

    First, find a good level and age-appropriate story for your students. Before you begin reading the story, tell your students to pay close attention because they are going to re-tell it themselves later.

    You will need to read the story to the students in an engaging way, occasionally stopping, and asking students what they think will happen next.

    Afterwards, allow the students five minutes to write as much of the story as they can remember in their notebooks.

    When time is up, put the students in pairs and allow them to compare stories and correct each other, combining their stories, so they have a complete version. Help students by writing key vocabulary on the board as they request it.

    Finally, hand out the original story for students to compare. Get feedback to find out what new vocabulary they have learned and help them make corrections in their stories where needed.

    3. Experiment with high-energy activities

    Reading doesn’t have to be a sedentary activity. Make use of the classroom space and use movement as a way to motivate and engage your students.

    Add a dash of physical activity to your reading task by turning it into a running dictation competition. At the same time, they will practice a whole range of skills; reading, listening, pronunciation, and writing.

    Before the class, stick some level-appropriate reading materials to a classroom wall; ideally, you should space it out well and have one reading sheet for every two to four students (the material should be identical).

    Put your students into pairs and tell them they are going to have a reading race. Nominate one student to write and another student to dictate.

    Students who are writing must sit at a table on the opposite side of the room to the reading material. Students who are dictating must go to the text on the wall, memorize as much of the text as possible, come back to the writer and dictate what they can remember.

    Pairs must write as much as they can in four minutes, and when you get halfway through the activity, students should swap roles.

    Finally, ask the students to swap their papers and listen to your dictation, making corrections and asking questions as they go. The pair with the longest text and fewest errors is the winner!

    4. Go beyond the text

    Taking a text and making it into something entirely original can also be a powerful motivator for creative students. Those who complain that reading is boring or too hard will have an extra reason to get through a story if there’s a promise of creative fun at the end of the task.

    Tell students that once they have finished reading, they must re-imagine the story and characters and adapt it for a radio show, complete with sound effects, music and scripts.

    Depending on how creative your students are feeling, they could write a sequel or a prequel, or adapt the existing story – ideal if you’re using a superhero reader from the Marvel series.

    They will need to review vocabulary and pronunciation, remember the details of the original story, explain the characters and their motivations, and plot and write their own scripts. Students can find sound effects on YouTube and record the whole thing on their mobile phones, or a school computer.

    By turning a book into a creative project, not only can you motivate students to read, but you will reinforce vocabulary, pronunciation and have a lot of fun doing it.