Executive control performance and foreign-language proficiency associated with immersion education in French-speaking Belgium

Abstract

A large sample study (n = 513) was conducted to investigate executive control performance in pupils following an immersion education program. We recruited 10-year-old children (n = 128) and 16-year-old adolescents (n = 127) who were enrolled in English or Dutch immersion education in French-speaking Belgium for at least 4 school years. They were compared to non-immersed children (n = 102) and adolescents (n = 156) on a number of executive control tasks assessing inhibitory control, monitoring, switching and attentional abilities. Several control variables such as receptive vocabulary, nonverbal intelligence, socioeconomic status and other potentially relevant background variables were also considered. Our results show significant gains in foreign-language proficiency for the immersed compared to the non-immersed participants. These gains were however not associated with any measurable benefits on executive control. Our findings make a unique contribution to understanding how language and cognition develop through formal education methods that promote bilingualism.

Cognitive Advantage in Children Enrolled in a Second-Language Immersion Elementary School Program for One Year

“…The general explanation provided by such authors (Carlson & Meltzoff, 2008) is similar: a short exposure to an L2 in the context of an early immersion program might not be sufficient to detect cognitive gains related to tasks assessing executive functioning. In this vein, Simonis, Van der Linden, Galand, Hiligsmann, & Szmalec (2019) also failed to find a positive effect of L2 early immersion education on attentional and executive functioning. During this study the authors compared a total sample of more than 500 French-speaking students from Belgium, such as 10 year-old children and 16-year adolescents immersed in English or Dutch for over four years and two groups of monolingual counterparts on different executive control tasks assessing inhibitory control (or interference inhibition), monitoring, switching (or cognitive flexibility skills), and attentional skills.…”

“…Besides studies having investigated cognitive advantages of early bilingualism acquired in the home or other community settings, further studies were interested in examining potential cognitive advantages in children learning an L2 at school using teaching programs, such as the “Content and language – Integrated learning method” (CLIL) (Bialystok & Barac, 2012; Carlson & Meltzoff, 2008; Kalashnikova & Mattock, 2014; Kaushanskaya, Gross, & Buac, 2014; Nicolay & Poncelet, 2013a, 2015; Poarch & van Hell, 2012; Simonis, Van der Linden, Galand, Hiligsmann, & Szmalec, 2019; Woumans, Surmont, & Struys, 2016). One of the key characteristics of the CLIL program is that L2 is not taught as a foreign language.…”

Exploration of Attentional and Executive Abilities in French-Speaking Children Immersed in Dutch Since 1, 2, 3, and 6 Years

“…In any case, the CLIL context impact seems to be more important than that of a traditional foreign language course of two hours per week. In contrast, Simonis et al (2019) and Simonis (2019), respectively, did not find an executive advantage on tasks evaluating cognitive flexibility or inhibition (DCCS, Simon task, ANT) after 5 years and an attentional advantage (different attentional tasks from the TAP battery) after 6 years of immersion in French-speaking children learning Dutch or English as L2. Otherwise, they did not evaluate working memory.…”

“…In addition, with the exception of second language learning, the program content is similar in CLIL and non-CLIL schools and lead to the same basic study certificate. Until now, most of the studies conducted in Belgium evaluating CLIL impact on AEF focused on English as L2 (Nicolay, 2012;Nicolay andPoncelet, 2013a, 2015;Barbu et al, 2019;Simonis, 2019;Simonis et al, 2019) and few focused on Dutch as L2 (Woumans et al, 2016;Simonis et al, 2019). No study focused on German to our knowledge.…”

“…However, some studies failed to replicate the attentional and executive advantage in both immersed children (e.g., Kaushanskaya et al, 2014;Simonis et al, 2019) and early bilinguals (cf. the meta-analysis of Paap et al, 2015).…”