Integrate Online Research to Get Students Engaged!

As we have grown throughout the years, we have come to accept that learning a foreign language is important. It is mandatory in many elementary and middle schools and it is required in order to graduate from highschool and college. Although we accept this, I am not sure we fully understand why it is so important. Yes it fulfills our education requirements but studies prove that learning foreign languages does so much more for us. It not only makes you smarter, as you will know more than one language, but it will also make you better at English and will allow you to retain memory more easily, will make you more decisive and perceptive, and will possibly add a few more years onto your life.Instead of hearing the all too famous question, "why do we have to learn this," teachers should show students that this answer can be answered with just a simple internet search.

There is more to learning a language than simply memorizing new vocab words. It requires you to pay attention to its mechanics such as its grammar and its sentence structure as well. When you understand the different formations of words and sentences in this new language, you are automatically more aware of the language as a whole. This awareness thus allows you to become more effective and efficient in communication and writing as a whole. People who learn other languages can also distinguish meaning in speech as well, as they will be able to use their understanding of other mechanics alongside their knowledge of English mechanics to communicate more concisely and clearly. Along with speaking, remembering comes more naturally to those who learn other languages. The brain is often compared to a muscle in the sense that exercising it will strengthen it. Learning other languages helps strengthen the brain and its memory. Studies show that people who speak more than one language can remember things such as lists, sequences and directions much more easily.

A study from the University of Chicago shows that people who learn more languages are more prone to making better decisions. Each language contains its own set of rules in its vocab and knowing them can subconsciously influence the speaker’s judgement. Since knowing another language allows you to think something over in more than one way, it inturn gives you more confidence when making a decision. Another study from the University of Pompeu Fabra in Spain shows that learning another language enhances perception. When you are able to think of something in more than one way, then you will also look at it and observe it in more than one way as well.

To many, these advantages to learning a foreign language do not matter, however there is more. Learning a new language can be beneficial to your health as well. Many studies have been done and prove that people who have learned other languages put off being diagnosed with Alzheimers and Dementia longer than people who are monolingual. 71.4 is the mean age for monolingual adults who have just started seeing signs of Dementia while 75.5 is the mean age for multilingual adults who have just started seeing signs. The studies were done in numerous ways and they all came back with the same results. It is clear and proven that learning a foreign language is meant to do much more than get you through highschool and college and I believe that if teachers presented this information to the classroom that their students would want to be there rather than feel like they have to be there. If students knew how easy is it to research the importance of things, I believe that they would want to use the Internet to beneficially research what they learn and ultimately become more engaged and intrigued in the lessons.