Mundos Virtuales, Educacion Conectada y Aprendizaje de Lenguas

Just great!!!

And we keep walking... wow

Children and older persons learning foreign languages have been demonstrated to:

+ have a keener awareness and sharper perception of language.

+ Foreign language learning “enhances children’s understanding of how language itself works and their ability to manipulate language in the service of thinking and problem solving” (Cummins 1981);

+ be more capable of separating meaning from form;

learn more rapidly in their native language (L1), e.g. to read, as well as display improved performance in other basic L1 skills, regardless of race, gender, or academic level;

+ be more efficient communicators in the L1;

+ be consistently better able to deal with distractions, which may help offset age-related declines in mental dexterity;

+ develop a markedly better language proficiency in, sensitivity to, and understanding of their mother tongue;develop a greater vocabulary size over age, including that in their L1;

+ have a better ear for listening and sharper memories;

+ be better language learners in institutionalized learning contexts because of more developed language-learning capacities owing to the more complex linguistic knowledge and higher language awareness;

+ have increased ability to apply more reading strategies effectively due to their greater experience in language learning and reading in two—or more—different languages;

+ develop not only better verbal, but also spatial abilities;

parcel up and categorize meanings in different ways;

display generally greater cognitive flexibility, better problem solving and higher-order thinking skills;

+ “a person who speaks multiple languages has a stereoscopic vision of the world from two or more perspectives, enabling them to be more flexible in their thinking, learn reading more easily. Multilinguals, therefore, are not restricted to a single world-view, but also have a better understanding that other outlooks are possible. Indeed, this has always been seen as one of the main educational advantages of language teaching” (Cook 2001);

+ multilinguals can expand their personal horizons and—being simultaneously insiders and outsiders—see their own culture from a new perspective not available to monoglots, enabling the comparison, contrast, and understanding of cultural concepts;

+ be better problem-solvers gaining multiple perspectives on issues at hand;

have improved critical thinking abilities;

+ better understand and appreciate people of other countries, thereby lessening racism, xenophobia, and intolerance, as the learning of a new language usually brings with it a revelation of a new culture;

+ learn further languages more quickly and efficiently than their hitherto monolingual peers;

+ to say nothing of the social and employment advantages of being bilingual – offering the student the ability to communicate with people s/he would otherwise not have the chance to interact with, and increasing job opportunities in many careers.