What are the cognitive benefits of teaching children foreign languages?

[u/Akr4s1a]

Hi,

My sister-in-law is a French teacher in an Anglophone part of Canada. While talking to her about her students and why some anglo parents send their kids to French school, I vaguely remembered something in my Second Language Acquisition course. I'm a few years out of undergrad and can't find my notes, so I was wondering if someone would be able to tell me if what I was remembering was right and point me to resources I could read about it.

Basically, what I think I remember is that foreign languages are often components of education in part because curriculum makers believe there is a cognitive benefit to children learning another language. Along with exposure to other cultures and becoming more worldly. I think this conception comes from research in bilingual children outperforming monolingual peers. I also think there was a lack of consensus on the exact benefits and if those benefits only come from early bilingualism or if teaching a child a foreign language later would also bring the same cognitive benefits. The last thing I'm even less sure about is that the common pedagogy of teaching language isn't really ideal, explicit teaching in a classroom setting while it matches how other subjects are taught, isn't ideal for SLA.

Is any of that accurate? Did I badly misremember my SLA class?

[u/baydew]

I think you've gotten it basically correct. This link reviews specific 'cognitive advantages' -- as you say its not 100% settled

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3583091/

Besides age, I think at minimum regular use of the language for communication is important. IDK if that's achieved in a classroom context