Creating bilingual minds | Naja Ferjan Ramirez | TEDxLjubljana

Dr. Naja Ferjan Ramirez is a researcher studying the brain processing of language in infants and young children. In her talk, she showcases the latest techniques to study the infant's brain and explains why all babies have the full potential to learn two languages at the same time. She discusses the benefits of bilingual environments for language and brain development and describes what it takes to create bilingual minds.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx

How many of you can speak two languages?

Most of you can.
We are in Europe after all.

Now, let me ask you this:

How many of you would say that you
are completely fluent in two languages

so that you could take a job or dream
in either one of them?

Not as many.

Why is that?

I think we can all agree that being fluent
in two languages is a good thing.

It creates additional job prospects.
It allows us to talk to more people.

It also has been linked to several
cognitive and social advantages,

and it delays the onset
of Alzheimer's disease.

So, why are we not all fluent bilinguals?

Those of us who studied
foreign languages in school

probably remember how hard it was
and how much we struggled.

I'm certainly speaking
from experience here.

I started learning English
when I was about ten years old,

in school, right here in Ljubljana.

And about nine years later,
when I went to study in the United States,

I thought my English was pretty good,
I was able to do my homework just fine,

but I also remember eating dinner
with my college friends

and not being able
to follow their conversations,

or going on my first date in America

and only understanding
about half of what the guy was telling me.

Now, I'm sure many of you have your own
stories about foreign language learning,

but there's one thing that most
of these stories have in common:

foreign language learning is hard.

It takes a lot of time, a lot of effort,

and it seems that no matter
how hard we try,

we rarely achieve native-like fluency -

even in those cases

when we have been using
our foreign language for years,

we still maintain that foreign accent.

Does it have to be this hard?

I don't think it does.

What I'll tell you today
is that the human brain is fully capable

of achieving native fluency
in two languages at the same time,

and that we don't necessarily
have to struggle to get there.

So what is it that we have to do
to create bilingual minds?

I think a very promising start
is to study the brains

of those who are really really good
at language learning.

Babies.

Babies are linguistic geniuses,

and all over the world,

babies learn their native languages
naturally and spontaneously

without anybody actually
teaching them how to do this,

but this gets even better.

Those babies

who have a chance to listen to
and interact in two languages learn both,

and they can become
native speakers of both.

You and I can't do that,

and computers can't do that either.

So, why and how are babies
so good at language learning?

I'm a researcher at

the University of Washington's
Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences -

I-LABS for short.

And I study the brain
processing of language

in babies between zero
and three years of age.

I focus specifically on those babies

who are learning two languages
at the same time, bilingual babies.

The approach that we take
to study the baby brain

is called Magnetoencephalography,

MEG for short.

We call it the hair dryer from Mars.

But it's important to understand
this machine is actually completely safe,

non-invasive, and completely silent,
so pretty baby friendly.

We use Magnetoencephalography
to study the baby brains,

and the MEG machine
that we have at our institute

is actually one of the few in the world
that's configured specifically for babies.

We also have a team
of trained research assistants

whose job is to keep the babies
happy and entertained

when we study their brains.

One question that we recently
studied with MEG was:

What goes on in the brains of those babies
who grow up in households

where two languages are spoken
at the same time, by native speakers?

If we look at these babies brains
before the baby's even begin to talk,

are they different from those of babies
who listen to a single language?

Here's how we tested these questions.

We brought the babies into the lab.

Half of them were from bilingual families

where one parent
was a native speaker of Spanish

and the other one
was a native speaker of English.

The other half of the babies
were from families

where both parents
were native English speakers,

so English was the only language
spoken in the household.

Then to prepare the babies for MEG,

we use those special
digitizing pen and a hat.

And what this procedure allows us to do
is to track the shape of the baby's head

so that we can then continuously
monitor the babies' motions

when the head is in the MEG helmet.

We then brought the babies
into the MEG room,

where they sat on a special highchair,

the head goes right into the MEG helmet,
and the parents sit right next to them

when we look at their brains.

During the MEG studies,

the babies typically listen
to the sounds of language -

in this case, the sounds
came from Spanish and English -

so let's take a listen
to see what that sounded like.

(Video starts)

(Video ends)

Some of these sounds are specific
to English, some are specific to Spanish,

and some are common to both languages.

All babies in these studies
were exactly 11 months old.

This is typically right around the time

when babies begin
to produce their first words,

but they're not really speaking yet.

So, what did we find?

What we found was that the brains
of monolingual babies

were specialized to process the sounds
of English, their native language,

and were not specialized to process
the sounds of Spanish,

the language to which
these babies were not exposed.

What about the brains of bilingual babies?

Well, as it turns out,
the brains of bilingual babies

were specialized to process the sounds
of both languages - Spanish and English.

So what does this mean,
and why am I so excited about this?

What this means is
that the baby brain specializes

to process whatever language or languages
are present in the environment.

The brains of those babies
who listen to one language

specialize to process one language,

but the brains of those babies
who listen to two languages

specialize to process two.

There's one more finding in this study
that I'd like to tell you about.

There's a part of the brain
called the prefrontal cortex -

it's highlighted in green
in this schematic that you can see.

But it's right here,
in the very front of your brain.

And we use this part of the brain
to direct our attention,

to switch back and forth between doing
different tasks and to think flexibly.

I think we can all agree that these
are extremely important tasks to do

in the 21st century.

We were curious to see
how the two groups of babies compared

in terms of their brain activity
in these prefrontal areas.

Interestingly, what we found

was that the bilingual babies
had stronger brain activity,

stronger brain responses
to language sounds,

specifically in these prefrontal regions.

Now, why would that be?

One explanation is
that the constant switching

back and forth between
two different languages

provides exercise for the brain,

that it strengthens these brain networks
that participate in attention switching,

and that this provides
a cognitive boost to the bilinguals.

Many other studies have actually shown

that bilingual children,
but also bilingual adults,

have advantages when it comes to tasks
that require cognitive flexibility,

but what's particularly intriguing here

is that we see brain differences
specifically in these areas

that are related to flexible thinking
at 11 months of age

before these babies are even speaking.

So our studies have shown

that the baby brain is fully capable
of specializing in two languages

at the same time,

and that there are possibly
some additional advantages

that come along with this for free.

So, given these findings
you may be wondering:

Why are we not raising
all babies to be bilingual?

There has to be a disadvantage here
that I'm not telling you about.

Some people think so.

One common concern is that bilingualism
slows language-learning down.

That it makes it slower.

Research doesn't actually support this.

Instead, what studies have shown is

that if we consider the patterns
in bilingual learning,

they're actually very very similar
to what we see in monolingual learning.

For example, bilingual babies start
producing their first sounds

as well as as their first words
at the same age as monolingual babies.

We also know that if we give
bilingual children credit

for each word that they know
across their two languages,

their vocabularies are
of the same size if not bigger

than those of monolingual babies.

Another common concern
is that bilingualism causes confusion.

This concern arises from the fact

that bilinguals sometimes
combine their two languages

in the same sentence
or in the same situation.

This is called code-switching
or code-mixing.

So does code-switching
or code-mixing indicate confusion?

Science suggests that it does not.

Most bilinguals code-switch,
and my family is not an exception.

In my family, we actually
speak three languages,

and sometimes we hear
sentences from our children

that combine all three:
Slovene, Spanish and English.

Does this mean
that our children are confused?

I don't think it does.

So let me give you an example
to demonstrate why this is the case.

My four-year-old will
sometimes say sentences like

"Mom, is daddy pod tušem?"

This means: mom, is daddy in the shower?

Now, why does he say sentences like this?

There are a few reasons.

The first one is that he can.

Bilinguals, unlike monolinguals,

have another language
from which they can easily borrow words,

and they sometimes do this

because they know words
from one language sometimes better

than they do in the other.

So for example,

my son probably knows the word "shower"
better in Slovene than he does in English,

so he uses it because it's easier.

The second reason
he uses sentences like this

is that he knows I will understand him.

He rarely use Slovene words
in his preschool

because he knows
that his teachers and his friends

will have no idea what he's talking about.

Bilingual children typically
know very very well

when they can and can't
mix their languages.

And studies have shown
that even two-year-olds

will adapt their language to match
that of their conversational partner.

There's one final point
about code-mixing that I'd like to make.

Even though it's called mixing,

it's not just randomly mixing together
words from different languages.

It follows grammatical rules.

I rarely hear sentences such as:
"Mom, is daddy pod tuš?"

Now, those of us who are fluent
speakers of Slovene and English

will know that I can
say "Daddy goes pod tuš,"

but "Daddy is pod tuš" doesn't work;
it has to be "pod tušem."

This is because the verb "be"
indicates a state,

and in Slovene, it requires
a different case than the verb "go,"

wich indicates motion.

This is complicated, right?

The point is this:
Code-mixing is not easy.

It requires a lot of linguistic
knowledge in both languages

as well as then being able to figure out
how to combine this knowledge

in a meaningful way.

So, rather than indicating confusion,

code-mixing is actually a sign
of linguistic sophistication.

It's also a perfectly normal,
and expected behavior

that we see in bilingual children,

but also in bilingual adults
who are fully fluent in both languages.

So bilingualism does not
cause confusion,

it also does not slow
language-learning down.

In fact, science suggests
that there are many advantages,

and the demand on bilingual education

is actually increasing in the US
as well as worldwide.

People are also beginning to realize

that starting from an early age
may be the best solution

because we know that at birth,

the human brain is just as capable
of learning two languages

as it is to learn one.

So what should we do?

How can we provide all babies
with an opportunity

to learn two languages
from a very young age.

In families like mine,
the answer is straightforward

because parents are
native speakers of languages

that are different from what the child
hears outside of the home.

But what about everybody else?

As a child language
development specialist,

I often hear from parents
who are eager to provide their baby

with an opportunity
to learn another language,

but they're not native speakers
of that language,

and they can't afford to hire a nanny
who's a native speaker of that language.

Some parents think that their baby
may be able to learn a foreign language

by watching television.

Unfortunately, this is not the case.

Older children may be able
to learn some foreign language words

from electronic media,

but babies learn languages through play,

through frequent social interactions
with live human beings

who are fully competent and comfortable
users of that target language.

So really, the question
comes down to this:

Can we create environments,
within public education,

through which all babies will be able
to learn foreign languages

from a very early age?

If we start very very early,

how much and what kind
of language exposure

is needed to create
a truly bilingual mind?

From research,

we know that babies can learn
foreign languages surprisingly quickly,

but at the same time,

we also know that the type
of language they hear

is critical in determining
how much they will learn

and how quickly they will learn.

So can we make this work?

We think that we can.

From research,

we know that there are six principles,
six ingredients, if you will,

that grow children's language.

We think that if we take
the right science-based approach

that combines these six ingredients,

we can create educational programs

through which all babies will be able
to learn foreign languages through play,

in the context of public
early education centers.

We recently started to test this idea
in one of the European capitals

where the government is very excited
to promote foreign language learning

for all babies from birth.

The results of these studies are extremely
exciting and extremely promising.

So stay tuned.

We think that this approach
has the potential

to change the game
for bilingual education.

We're hoping to scale it up

so that it will one day allow all babies
to reach their full potential

and to start learning two languages
from a very young age.

Thank you.

(Applause)