Bilingualism as an Advantage in Academic Communication Skill

BILINGUALISM AS AN ADVANTAGE IN ACADEMIC COMMUNICATION SKILL

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The word Communication has been derived from the Latin word “Communicare” means, “to share”.  Based on this, the word may be defined as a method of exchanging or sharing informations or knowledge from one person to another by speaking, writing or by using some other devices. Depending on the devices and means, Communication can broadly be divided into two sections- a) Verbal Communication and b) Non- verbal communication. a) Verbal Communication is generally the spoken or the written form of conveying the information through human languages. b) Non-verbal communication constitute of non-linguistic representations of the conveyed message by gestures, body language, facial expressions and also by eye-contact. In accordance to the verbal communication, there is another form of communication known as Academic Communication. Academic communication consists of presenting ideas and knowledge effectively in an educational teacher-student conversation in an academic institution. In other words, academic communication may be called as Pedagogy that includes using different ideas, words and methods disseminated among the learners. Here comes the role of Bilingualism as an absolute beneficial academic communication skill.

From the very word Bilingualism, it is clear that, it is the ability of an individual to speak or express one’s ideas and expressions fluently in two languages. An individual speaking two languages simultaneously rather than one, has obviously practical benefits in today’s globalized world. Being bilingual it not even makes the individual exceptionally smarter, but also improves his communication skills. Through his communication skill he can reach to a wider range of the world’s community without any limitations. The bilingualism not only provides with excellent communication skills, but also effects the brain development of an individual. Recent researches showed that bilingual individuals are much more advanced than the monolingual (individual speaking only one language) as their so-called brain’s executive functions works more efficiently. For example, even when the person is using one language he has on his memory both the language constantly active and thus it helps the brain to execute the functions accordingly. It resolves all the conflicts going on inside one’s brain helping the person in multitasking. For the researchers and the scientists of the early 20th century, bilingualism was considered to be hindrance to a child’s brain development complaining that the child is devoid of learning new vocabulary. This is because the researches in those times showed the obstruction of one language over the other system, thus contributing to the disadvantage of bilingualism. But in recent times, the modern scientific works and medical science proved that bilingual experiences improves the attention processes helping the individual to solve problems, to stay focused on his aim even when there are other distractions and also to perform multiple tasks mentally. These bilingual individuals also have a huge advantage in their oldage as they do not suffer from mental illness like dementia which a bilingual may face.