Being a bilingual-Subajana Jeyaseelan

For a person knowing more than one language is a great strength. In other words, it is an additional weapon. In this modern fast moving technological globe mingling with different community people for various reasons as an academic, professional and so on is inevitable. Attaining the command in English language will take individuals on a ladder of success. When we take our country, there are two major languages, Sinhala and Tamil, which are used by the majority and minority respectively. In addition to their mother tongues if the individuals from both communities know English language it will bring them under one roof. Also, it functions as a bridge for them and will be a gateway to share their emotions, ideas, friendship and reduce the misunderstanding between them. The president of the country says that this sprouting new generation should not learn English as a subject but as a tool of communication. This would, on a long run, lead the nation and its people live in harmony without calamity.

For the last few years Vavuniya campus, has enough students from multi-communities. This resulted in interacting with students from two different communities. Markedly, the medium of instruction for them is in English which support them to develop their language skills in plethora ways. Adding to this point, also in the students’ academic curriculum at the campus they have the courses like Proficiency in English, General English (non-credit subjects) and the Business Communication, a credit subject.  This is a dozen of opportunities to master the language and become bilinguals. The teachers and the parents, which is a bounden duty to them, should think how they can facilitate the students in the learning process.

Further, English language plays the role as link language.This associtaes different countrymen with different languages.This alignment gives a huge opening to dissiminate knowledge and cultivates healthy, amicable friendship. Also it paves way to develop mutual understanding among the diverse countrymen.  Further, many topics can be discussed with them such as their culture, ceremonial rites and rituals, life-style, educational as well as professional systems. Also, observing and learning different attitudes of the people will help shape up our mindset.

Moreover, this is an interesting point related to being a bilingual. A new research suggests that stroke victims who are bilingual far more likely to regain their brain functions rather than who is a monolingual. According to the research findings it suggests that the mental challenge has some connection with the language use; that is speaking more than one language can improve the way the brain deals with strokes, dementia and other damaging influences.

This research was conducted by using 600 stroke patients as a data and scientifically proved by the team - based at the University of Edinburgh and the Nizam Institute of Medical Sciences in Hyderabad, India. Adding to it, they notified that bilingual and multilingual nearly 40.5 pct are supposed to regain to their normal mental functions where as monolingual’s proportion was only 19.6 pct the research shows.

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The team considered the patients' ages as well as other factors such as smoking, diabetes and blood pressure to make sure their results were not attributed to some having a healthier lifestyle.

Holidaying abroad also help people brush up their language skills by blending with people and those who are recovering from a stroke can cover themselves with a stroke travel insurance policy.

According to the researchers the percentage of bilingual patients whose cognitive functions remained undamaged after their stroke was over twice as high as for monolingual ones. The likelihood of post-stroke cognitive impairments, meanwhile, was higher among those who only speak one language.

The study's co-author, Thomas Bak, says people who are bilingual communicate by inhibiting one language while activating another. Switching between languages, keeps the brain in almost constant training, which could be a factor in helping people recover from strokes.

In conclusion, being a bilingual not only fills the communication gap but also it functions as a tonic to maintain physical mental health. Every individual should realize this fact exorbitantly to activate and train the cognitive abilities to acquire one additional language such as English, the global language, in their life.

Reference

(2015, November, 24).Being bilingual ‘aids stroke recovery’ Retrieved from

http://www.world-first.co.uk/home/travel-insurance/medical-problems/being-bilingual-aids-stroke-recovery$69380.aspx