Session 1 Global languages: English and other future top languages Dr Ursula Lanvers Open University Dr Kristina Hultgren Open University

English as a global language? Think about a time when you’ve met a non-English speaking person in the UK or abroad: what language did you speak?

English as a global language?

Class Discussion The number of English speakers in the world is A: Greater than the number of Chinese speakers B: Smaller than the number of Chinese speakers

Quiz Question 1 How many languages are there in the world? A Nearly 7,000 B About 1,000 C About 900 D Nearly 1 million

English as a global language? Speakers of English as a percentage of world population native=first language

Quiz Question 2 How many official languages does South Africa have? B 2 C 11

Quiz Question 3 Which country in the world has the most languages? A Switzerland B Papua New Guinea C Luxemburg

Linguistic Diversity http://mlm.humanities.manchester.ac.uk/

Major Languages Today Language Mother tongue speakers Chinese 848 million Hindi/Urdu 500 million Arabic 485 million Spanish 415 million English 335 million

Top Languages of the Future Graddol, D. (2004). The future of language Top Languages of the Future Graddol, D. (2004). The future of language. Science, 303(5662), 1329-1331.

Quiz Question 4 What are the three most widely spoken first languages today?

Quiz Question 5 How many languages are spoken in Manchester?

References http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_English-speaking_population http://www.coetail.com/oneeyemark/2013/10/12/esl-in-english-speaking-countries-as-a-comfort-to-non-speakers/ http://poliglotti4.eu/php/media-centre/index.php?doc_id=2442&lg=fr http://mlm.humanities.manchester.ac.uk/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_total_number_of_speakers http://www.myenglishteacher.eu/blog/what-are-10-most-spoken-languages-in-the-world/

Quiz Answers 1. Answer A There are nearly 7000 languages in the world 2. Answer C South Africa has 11 official languages including English, Afrikaans, Ndebele, Sotho, Northern Sotho, Zulu, Xhosa (a click language)

Quiz answers 3. Answer B Papua New Guinea is the country with most languages (838) 4. If you mentioned three of these five you were right: Chinese, Hindi, Arabic, Spanish, English 5. There are more than 150 languages in Manchester

How being bilingual works What being bilingual does to you Session 2 How being bilingual works What being bilingual does to you Bilingual: fluent (or highly competent) in 2 languages Dr Ursula Lanvers Open University Dr Kristina Hultgren Open University

Get ready! Get into your teams! (Answer sheet? Team name?) listen to experts on bilingualism learn about brain functions and bilingualism Quiz: Results day!

Quiz Question 1 Bilinguals store one language in one hemisphere (left /right side) of the brain, the other language in the other hemisphere . TRUE OR FALSE?

Cognitive functions in bilinguals and monolinguals Prof. Ellen Bialystok world leader on bilingualism and the brain scientist at the Rotman Research Institute of the Baycrest Centre for Geriatric Care (Canada) watch her perform a kind of intelligence test & take part! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOniN0PMyJg Minute 14.00-19.20 Literate=able to read Executive control=(fast) control over different brain activities Stimulus= what the test person needs to react to Congruent=matching

Stroop test & letter conflict test Orange Blue Green Pink Purple Pink Discuss: Were the tasks difficult for you? Why are bilinguals better? Will bilinguals always have this advantage- even when old?

How many languages can one person learn? Quiz question 2 How many languages can one person learn? A up to 6 if learned in childhood B there is no limit C up to 12 if they are related, like French and Spanish, for example D up to 18 if learned early in life

Bilingualism and dementia Prof Bialystok tested for differences in onset (start) of dementia between bilinguals and monolinguals She was so surprised by the results she repeated the tests with lots of different patients Bialystok, E., Craik, F. I., & Freedman, M. (2007). Bilingualism as a protection against the onset of symptoms of dementia. Neuropsychologia, 45(2), 459-464. Why these differences? Do they have to do with to the differences in bilingual children? Mean value (and standard deviation) first problem noticed first hospital appointment monolinguals 71.4 (9.4) 75.4 (9.3) bilinguals 75.5 (8.5) 78.6 (8.4)

Quiz question 3 Bilingual children are better than monolinguals at recognizing links between meanings of words, for instance Plane-bus: both are vehicles. TRUE OR FALSE?

Quiz question 4 Bilingual teenagers are better at learning to drive. TRUE OR FALSE?

So how does the bilingual brain work? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhpVd30AJaY Are bilingual brains bigger? Do bilingual brains develop faster? So bilinguals are better at ‘executive function’ of the brain- any advantages? Prefrontal cortex: part of brain behind forehead Neuroplasticity: flexibility of the brain, ability to form new networks Cognitive function: thinking ability

Bilingual at birth already? Bilingual babies can separate the languages as early as 7 months They use qualities like pitch and duration of sounds to keep two languages separate Pitch: the degree of ‘highness’ or ‘lowness’ of a tone Duration: the length of time a sound is produced Hearing two languages from birth gives children advantages that can last a lifetime Therefore they can differentiate the languages long before they can speak, when they are just babbling Kovács, Á. M., & Mehler, J. (2009). Cognitive gains in 7-month-old bilingual infants. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 106(16), 6556-6560. Werker, J. F., & Byers-Heinlein, K. (2008). Bilingualism in infancy: First steps in perception and comprehension. Trends in cognitive sciences, 12(4), 144-151.

Quiz question 5 Children learning 3 languages from birth A will become fluent in all 3 if given enough input B will mix up all languages C will speak all 3 languages but none of them like monolinguals (speaker of one language only)

Quiz question 6 Bilinguals are better at maths. TRUE OR FALSE?

Answers to Quiz Q 1 Bilinguals store one language in one hemisphere (left /right side) of the brain, the other language in the other hemisphere. False. Bilinguals store language in the same parts of the brain as monolinguals but the size of some brain parts (pre-frontal cortex) that process language the density of neural networks in these parts are greater in bilinguals. =-1&sk=#view=detail&mid=C174AFC75C58570A3636C174AFC75C58570A3636

Answers to quiz Q 2 How many languages can a person learn? B There is no upper limit. ….some speak 20 like this 17 year old New Yorker….. http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=individual+speaking+30+different+languages&qs=n&form=QBVR&pq=individual+speaking+30+different+languages&sc=0-0&sp

Answers to Quiz Q 3 Bilingual children are better than monolinguals at recognizing links between meanings of words, for instance Plane-bus: both are vehicles. True. Q 4 Bilingual teenagers are better at learning to drive. False. There is no evidence that bilingualism has much impact on the ability to learn to drive BUT they are likely to be better at filtering out irrelevant information and concentrate on the important information.

Answers to Quiz Q 5 C Children learning 3 languages from birth will become fluent in all 3 if given enough input. If the input in the 3 languages is relatively balanced, they will become like 3 monolinguals in 1. Q 6 False. Although bilinguals have some cognitive advantages, there is no evidence (yet) to suggest that bilinguals are better at maths.