Lots of studies on different student age groups have shown that bilingual students have better attention and task-switching capacities than their monolingual counterparts. This is due to their developed ability to inhibit one language while using another. Bilingual students often perform better on tasks that require conflict management as they can better manage and ignore irrelevant information. Bilingual students are better at discerning the essential from the non-essential.

It has been shown that bilingual education is correlated with better academic achievement. Bilingualism has been associated with improved metalinguistic awareness, (the ability to recognize language as a system that can be manipulated and explored), as well as with better memory, visual-spatial skills, and even creativity. This leads to a number of improvements in learning.

Bilingual and multilingual students are better able to manage multiple tasks, solving problems across verbal and nonverbal domains as they capitalise on what they know in one area to address another. Bilingual students come up with more ideas, are more creative in their thinking across more categories of possibility when problem-solving. Students have shown a far greater pool of vocabulary and ideas to draw from and hence are better communicators of their ideas.

Learning more than one language enables new conversations and new experiences, and this is at the centre of an IFS education. A recent study showed that bilingual students exhibit greater empathy in communication with others. This comes from the perspective they gain in not only speaking another language but learning to interpret meaning through subtle cues. As a result, bilingual students outperform monolinguals in a range of cognitive and social tasks. They can read other people better, creating greater empathy and are thus open-minded to new experiences.

An adaptable mind is an essential tool for navigating today’s ever-changing world, as yesterday’s solutions won’t solve tomorrow’s problems. At IFS, we see it as fundamental to our mission to prepare our students for the challenges they will face.

We have seen at IFS our students developing agile and adaptable minds through our enriching bilingual programmes. Fostering young confident, compassionate and committed global citizens.

The experiences of learning in two languages within the IFS system leaves our students with mental flexibility, a superiority in concept formation, and a more diversified set of mental abilities.

For our students, being bilingual has positive effects at both ends of the age spectrum. Bilingual children as young as three can better adjust to environmental changes, while by the time they become bilingual seniors, they can experience less cognitive decline.

In conclusion, what studies have shown is lifelong experiences in managing attention to two languages reorganises specific brain networks. Thereby creating more effective cognitive control and sustain better mental performance throughout their lifespan.