Benefits of Bilingualism

Attending a language immersion school allows students to become fully bilingual. At GISB, students of every age express themselves in both languages and are fully immersed in at least two different cultures.

With over 40 different languages and cultures represented in our school community, we recognize and revel in the diverse array of backgrounds our families hold. The breadth of experiences our families bring is a major point of connection and value in our global school community.

In a world that becomes more complex by the day, fluently speaking more than one language has apparent benefits. A growing body of research shows that, besides just being able to communicate with more people, bilingual children think more flexibly and perform better academically than monolingual children. Students who begin a bilingual education in preschool and continue through high school obtain the greatest benefits.

A 2024 study published by McGill University reinforces these findings. According to the paper’s first author, Zeus Gracia-Tabuenca, “Our work suggests learning a second language during childhood helps build a more efficient brain organization in terms of functional connectivity. The results indicate that the earlier the second language experience, the broader extent of brain areas involved in neuroplasticity. That’s why we are observing higher connectivity of the cerebellum with the cortex in earlier exposures to a second language.” Read the article here.

A ground-breaking study of more than 80,000 subjects published in Nature Aging on November 10, 2025 suggests that speaking more than one language could actually slow brain ageing and help to prevent cognitive decline.

Amoruso, L., Hernandez, H., Santamaria-Garcia, H. et al. Multilingualism protects against accelerated aging in cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses of 27 European countries. Nat Aging 5, 2340–2354 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43587-025-01000-2

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“We love the community. There are so many families who come from different countries—our shared experience of raising kids with many languages and cultures really unites us.”

— Biki Takashima-Uebelhör

Learning a second language during childhood helps build a more efficient brain organization in terms of functional connectivity.
Zeus Gracia Tabuenca

Bilingualism Literally Changes Your Brain

Bilingual Children Excel Academically

Bilingual Children Feel Better And Are More Culturally Aware Than Monolingual Children

Bilingual Children Have An Easier Time Learning A Third Language

  • Children who grow up experiencing two or more cultures develop a greater apprecia­tion for multiple points of view and a stronger sense of the importance of multicultur­alism. Starting in 6th grade, the average bilingual child outperforms their monolingual peers, thus proving that any academic disadvantage a bilingual child may experience early on is quickly overcome.
  • Bilingual children score higher on math and science exams than monolinguals. Although researchers are not entirely clear on why this is, the prevailing hypothesis is that thinking and speaking fluently in two languages requires the brain to be very flexible. This flexibility correlates strongly with memory and problem-solving ability.
  • Brain imaging studies have revealed that the average bilingual brain has denser grey matter than the average monolingual brain.
  • Denser grey matter is correlated with increased memory, attention, and language ability.
  • Bilingual children have lower levels of anxiety and loneliness and enjoy higher self-es­teem than monolingual children. Researchers think this is because bilingual children experience less social stress thanks to their stronger executive function and heightened ability to understand and navigate more than one culture.
  • Because bilingual children can communicate fluently with more people, they can easily make friends who speak the child’s second language. They can also bridge generation gaps with relatives who don’t speak the predominant language of the child’s home country.
  • Bilinguals enjoy enhanced executive function or those areas of the brain that work together in planning and problem-solving.
  • Multiple studies demonstrate that being bilingual from childhood delays the onset of Alzheimer’s and other forms of age-related dementia.
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