If Bilingual Is Good, Is Trilingual Better? Amit Bhargava for The New York TimesSchool children cycle past advertisements for language coaching institutes in Patna, Bihar. “Being bilingual, it turns out, makes you smarter,” Yudhijit Bhattacharjee writes in an op-ed in The New York Times. “It can have a profound effect on your brain, improving cognitive skills not related to language and even shielding against dementia in old age.” But if being bilingual is good, what about being trilingual, as so many people in India are? That’s hardly unusual in India, where someone may, speak, say, Punjabi and Hindi with their father’s family, Bengali with their mother’s and Hindi and English with their spouse and children. But research into the effect of trilingualism is scarce, in India or worldwide. In India, research on the dozens of languages spoken in the country often has an economic focus, rather than any focus on the effect on individual intelligence. Do you speak three or four languages?
ASPHYXIE – Reportage dans la ville au cœur de la vague d’immolations tibétaines, sous pression Image extraite de la vidéo de Jonathan Watts, du "Guardian", à Aba, ville tibétaine dans le Sichuan. C'est un reportage osé, d'autant plus rare qu'il comporte une vidéo. Un journaliste du Guardian a réussi à déjouer les barrages policiers et à atteindre la ville tibétaine d'Aba, Ngaba en tibétain, dans cette région du Sichuan totalement fermée aux étrangers, surtout quand ils sont journalistes. "Tous les vingt mètres sur la route principal d'Aba, (...), des officiers de police et des fonctionnaires communistes portant des brassards rouges surveillent de potentiels manifestants. D'extincteurs ? La dernière immolation en date ne remonte pas plus loin que dans la nuit du dimanche au lundi 13 février et a eu lieu, comme dans la majorité des cas, au monastère de Kirti. >> Lire le compte rendu du tchat avec l'ethnologue Katia Buffetrille : "L'immolation est, pour les Tibétains, le seul moyen de s'exprimer" Carte Google de Ngaba, dans le Sichuan. Cette entrée a été publiée dans Actualité.
Cognitive gains in 7-month-old bilingual infants Author Affiliations Edited by Susan E. Carey, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, and approved February 12, 2009 (received for review November 11, 2008) Abstract Children exposed to bilingual input typically learn 2 languages without obvious difficulties. “When I was talking to my paternal grandmother I had to speak in a manner that I later discovered was called English, and when I was talking to my mother or her parents I had to talk a language that afterward turned out to be Spanish” notes J. Previous studies have shown that infants process various aspects of the languages they are exposed to from very early on. How do bilingually raised infants, who lack the homogeneous input of monolinguals, cope with their linguistic environment? To understand the effects of bilingualism on EF, we investigated whether preverbal monolingual and bilingual infants differ in their ability to master tasks that engage EF. Results Experiment 1. Fig. 1. Trial structure of the 3 experiments. Fig. 2. Experiment 2.
In the age of big data, data journalism has profound importance for society The promise of data journalism was a strong theme throughout the National Institute for Computer-Assisted Reporting’s (NICAR) 2012 conference. In 2012, making sense of big data through narrative and context, particularly unstructured data, will be a central goal for data scientists around the world, whether they work in newsrooms, Wall Street or Silicon Valley. Notably, that goal will be substantially enabled by a growing set of common tools, whether they’re employed by government technologists opening Chicago, healthcare technologists or newsroom developers. At NICAR 2012, you could literally see the code underpinning the future of journalism written – or at least projected – on the walls. “The energy level was incredible,” said David Herzog, associate professor for print and digital news at the Missouri School of Journalism, in an email interview after NICAR. “Free and open-source tools dominated,” said Herzog. The PANDA Project officially launched in beta in St. “St.
Hearing Bilingual - How Babies Tell Languages Apart Yet while many parents recognize the utility of a second language, families bringing up children in non-English-speaking households, or trying to juggle two languages at home, are often desperate for information. And while the study of bilingual development has refuted those early fears about confusion and delay, there aren’t many research-based guidelines about the very early years and the best strategies for producing a happily bilingual child. But there is more and more research to draw on, reaching back to infancy and even to the womb. As the relatively new science of bilingualism pushes back to the origins of speech and language, scientists are teasing out the earliest differences between brains exposed to one language and brains exposed to two. Recently, researchers at the University of Washington used measures of electrical brain responses to compare so-called monolingual infants, from homes in which one language was spoken, to bilingual infants exposed to two languages. In
Mick Jagger, Obama: le leader des Rolling Stones chantera à la Maison-Blanche Le chanteur des Rolling Stones Mick Jagger va se produire devant le président Barack Obama à la Maison Blanche le 21 février pendant une soirée blues, au côté d'autres musiciens légendaires comme Jeff Beck, Buddy Guy et B.B. King, a annoncé mardi la présidence américaine. Ce concert intitulé "Red, White and Blues", destiné à être diffusé à la télévision publique américaine six jours plus tard, est organisé à l'occasion du "Black History Month", le mois lors duquel les Etats-Unis se souviennent des contributions de la communauté noire à leur histoire et à leur culture. La participation à ce concert de Mick Jagger, 68 ans, intervient alors que les Rolling Stones, à qui l'on doit des dizaines de standards du rock dont Satisfaction, Sympathy for the Devil et Gimme Shelter, célèbrent cette année le 50e anniversaire de leur formation. Regardez Gimme Shelter en live (1997):
TICs en el aula: el desafio de cambiar las practicas docentes Mientras un niño guiado por la profesora realiza operaciones en un notebook, el resto del curso observa pasivamente una imagen borrosa proyectada por un data en la pared. Esta escena, ejemplo clásico de mala aplicación de la tecnología en el aula, es la que no queremos ver en Chile. Sin embargo no es ficticia, sino que corresponde a una situación presenciada por Daniel Light en una escuela. Había todo un curso de niños aburridos y desenganchados de lo que estaba ocurriendo en la mesa del único alumno que tenía acceso al notebook. Este es, sostiene Daniel, “un uso estúpido de la tecnología” que lejos de aportar al aprendizaje, lo entorpece. La enorme inversión que está haciendo nuestro país al dotar de tecnología de punta a más de 16 mil salas de clase en los próximos tres años, debiera volvernos particularmente sensibles a experiencias como la relatada. Los profesores deben saber elegir los mejores recursos, cuál dispositivo, actividad, o software es el más adecuado a sus objetivos.
Hack off, Hack on Let's imagine the future. (I know this isn't Kew. You'll have to work with me.) So this week Dave Winer called hack days “nonsense”. His name might not be immediately familiar to you but it’s fitting that he should be mentioned in the first few days of this blog’s life because just as Al Gore invented the internet and the Earl of Sandwich invented lunch, Winer has had a direct impact on something I know for a fact that you are doing right now. Blogs are underpinned by RSS feeds. Unlike John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich, who doesn’t get up to much these days, Winer is still a prolific writer online and it’s right we should take his comments on hack days seriously especially since there are bound to be at least a few people reading this and wondering what on earth I’m talking about. Essentially, next month, we’re going to fill the Archives with hackers. This is a film made at History Hackday showing a history of the world in 100 seconds.
Concordia - Les bébés sont naturellement bilingues! Avant même de naître, un bébé perçoit déjà si on lui parle dans deux langues différentes. C'est le constat surprenant que fait Krista Byers-Heinlein, professeure de psychologie à l'Université Concordia et spécialiste du développement des enfants et de l'acquisition du langage. «Les bébés adorent qu'on leur parle, dit-elle. Ils cherchent sans cesse à entendre le son de la voix. Dès leur naissance, ils sont prêts à entendre n'importe quoi. Si donc on leur parle en français, en anglais ou en chinois, pas de problème... «Je concentre mes recherches sur le bilinguisme durant l'enfance, dit-elle, sur les enfants exposés à deux langues (ou plus) dès leur naissance. L'instinct du langage Krista Byers-Heinlein constate en outre qu'il y a même un avantage marqué à apprendre deux langues dès sa naissance. C'est incidemment par un curieux hasard qu'à l'adolescence elle s'est prise de passion pour l'acquisition du langage. Parlons beaucoup aux enfants Collaborateur du Devoir
14 Ways an Economist Says I Love You. Give your loved one a nerdy Valentine and they'll be yours forever! Why? Because if you give them diamonds/cufflinks this year, anything you get them next year will fall short. Bilinguismo | Aprender idiomas a una edad temprana | Estimulacion Temprana Aprender idiomas a una edad temprana Hablar dos idiomas o más tiene profundos efectos beneficiosos sobre el cerebro y el desarrollo de la inteligencia. Y esto es especialmente importante en edades tempranas. De hecho, el aprendizaje de una nueva lengua se convierte en parte fundamental de un programa de Estimulación Temprana. El bilinguismo mejora las habilidades cognitivas, incluso las no relacionadas con el lenguaje. Hace ya algunos años que los científicos lo saben, aunque otra cosa es que se haya divulgado en la sociedad para que educadores, políticos y padres lo tengan en cuenta en la educación de alumnos e hijos. A menudo las investigaciones y avances científicos quedan reducidos al ámbito universitario o a revistas científicas y no llegan al público en general. Y es una pena, porque muchos de los avances y descubrimientos nos harían pensar y actuar de forma diferente si los conociéramos. Bilinguismo o Multilinguismo Nuria Ferres P.D. Estudio realizado en el 2009 con bebés de 7 meses.
Phone journalism gives a voice to India's rural poor As a journalist hailing from the Indian state of Chhattisgarh, the epicenter of a violent Maoist insurgency, Shubhranshu Choudhary was regularly confronted with the shortcomings of his profession. The uprising, described by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in 2006 as India's "single biggest internal security challenge ever," drew much of its strength from the disenfranchised indigenous communities who are a majority in Chhattisgarh. Numbering perhaps as many as 100 million across India, the "tribals" live in impoverished rural conditions comparable to or lower than those prevalent in sub-Saharan Africa, according to the United Nations. Yet despite their centrality to the conflict, the voice of the tribal people was almost completely absent from the national media conversation. "There's not a single tribal journalist," said Choudhary. Not only were the tribal people absent as voices in the media -- they had no access as consumers either, said Choudhary. Read more at CNN.com
The Benefits of Failing at French I USED to joke that I spoke French like a 3-year-old. Until I met a French 3-year-old and couldn’t hold up my end of the conversation. This was after a year of intense study, including at least two hours a day with Rosetta Stone, Fluenz and other self-instruction software, Meetup groups, an intensive weekend class and a steady diet of French movies, television and radio, followed by what I’d hoped would be the coup de grâce: two weeks of immersion at one of the top language schools in France. “French resistance” took on an entirely new meaning as my brain repelled every strategy I employed.
Conjoncture : Une troisième révolution industrielle est en vue L'économiste américain Jeremy Rifkin présente ce mardi à Paris son dernier essai sur les mutations en cours de l'économie et les bases d'une croissance durable tout au long du XXIe siècle. Voici sa vision du futur. «Une troisième révolution industrielle doit prendre le relais de notre modèle actuel, à bout de souffle», assure l'économiste américain Jeremy Rifkin. Selon lui, «la crise actuelle n'est pas la crise de la finance, mais la crise du pétrole» et cet or noir sera de plus en plus rare et de plus en plus cher. Surtout, cette énergie est polluante, et les catastrophes naturelles de plus en plus violentes et fréquentes plaident en faveur d'un modèle de croissance plus soutenable. Ce modèle alternatif repose sur les énergies vertes et sur Internet, estime Jeremy Rifkin. Cinq préalables à une nouvelle révolution industrielle Les villes pourront alors mettre en place des véhicules électriques, ou à pile à combustible, partagés, que chacun utilise le temps nécessaire.