Academic Benefits of World Language Study
Pamela M. Wesely & Liwen Cai University of Iowa
Highlights
- There are three commonly identified academic benefits associated with studying a world language: improved overall linguistic and literacy development, higher academic achievement in other content areas like mathematics and science, and increased standardized test scores.
- Early language study has been shown to have long-term benefits in learners’ ongoing academic achievement.
- Programs closely related to world language programs, like bilingual and immersion programs, have also been shown to have a positive impact on students’ academic gains, fostering learning in all content areas.
There is significant research evidence to support the academic benefits of studying a world language as a content area in school. Academic benefits are often defined as improvements in knowledge or skill related to academic content. Different from cognitive benefits, which focus on improvements in brain structure and function, academic benefits can be measured by things like achievement or content tests and documentation of persistence in study. For a fuller understanding of all of the benefits of world language study, we recommend that readers consider both the academic benefits, summarized in this Research Brief, as well as the cognitive benefits.
There are obvious academic gains made in world language (WL) study, since students learn to communicate in another language and gain knowledge about other cultures. Researchers have found that studying other languages in school is correlated with improved overall linguistic and literacy development, higher academic achievement in other content areas like mathematics and science, and increased standardized test scores. In this Research Brief, we will summarize some of the main findings in these areas. This brief focuses on the US context, and on students whose primary language is English and who are learning another language in school, in either a traditional or immersion world language program.
Language and Literacy Development
One of the most documented areas where the research shows the benefits of WL study has been in the areas of language and literacy development, both in the language being studied, and in the learners’ first language.
Most importantly, developing bilingualism through studying a WL in a school context has been shown to help learners develop language and literacy skills that are transferable across languages, like awareness of phonology (Laurent & Martinot, 2010; Murphy et al, 2015), reading accuracy (Murphy et al., 2015 [UK study]); reading achievement (Alanís, 2000); and overall language proficiency in both languages (Lazaruk, 2007 [Canadian context]). Some scholars connect these developments to a type of linguistic interdependence, where students leverage their knowledge of multiple languages to develop their overall linguistic aptitude and knowledge (Lazaruk, 2007).
Research in language immersion programs has also consistently demonstrated that, after the first years of study, students demonstrate positive academic outcomes on English language assessments, especially when compared with monolingual students. Work by Lindholm-Leary (2001, 2011, 2022) in Spanish-English and Chinese-English two-way immersion, where some students are English-dominant and some are Spanish- or Chinese- dominant, revealed that all students outperformed state averages in English reading (2001), that they performed at or above grade level in English achievement (2011), and that they developed overall better academic outcomes (2022). These findings have been overwhelmingly consistent across different contexts and programs, sometimes when controlling for socio-economic status (e.g. Lindholm-Leary, 2022) and often comparing groups that scored similarly at early ages (Lindholm-Leary, 2011).
Although there is certainly room for more research in this area, the studies that do exist clearly demonstrate advantages correlated with the study of a WL in terms of literacy and language development.
Higher Academic Achievement in Content Areas like Mathematics and Science
Studying a world language has been shown to correlate with students’ higher academic achievement in other content areas as well. This finding has been consistent across student levels and types of WL programs in the United States. In 1985, Davis-Wiley found that students (N=2244) who studied Latin, French, German, or Spanish in high school performed better academically in college compared to those who did not take WL, controlling for similar high school GPAs and ACT scores (Davis-Wiley, 1985).
Studying younger learners, Taylor and Lafayette (2010) found that there was a relationship between WL study in Louisiana Foreign Language in the Elementary Schools (FLES) programs and performance standardized tests including the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills (ITBS) and the Louisiana Educational Assessment Programs for the 21st Century (LEAP 21). The study included over 1800 third, fourth, and fifth-grade students. Matching schools with similar socioeconomic and location profiles, the study revealed students in the WL-offering schools outperformed comparable peers in non-WL-offering schools on the standardized tests in English language arts, mathematics, science, and social studies (Taylor & Lafayette, 2010). In an earlier study where 100 third-grade students were randomly assigned to treatment and control groups, Armstrong and Rogers (1997) identified gains specifically in math performance after 30 minutes three times per week of Spanish lessons.
There have been similar findings in two-way or dual immersion programs, where students in the programs have been compared with students in monolingual English programs. Evidence suggests that the longer that students persist in those programs, the more likely to be a positive effect on those other academic results in math and science (Fan et al., 2013; Watzinger-Tharp, 2018).
Increased Standardized Test Scores
Lastly, research has consistently shown that WL study positively correlates with higher standardized test scores across a variety of ages and tests. As cited above, elementary students taking standardized tests like the ITBS (Taylor & Lafayette, 2010) and state-level tests (Alanís, 2000; Armstrong & Rogers, 1997; Lindholm-Leary, 2001, 2011, 2022; Taylor & Lafayette, 2010), have consistently shown higher results correlating with WL study. All these studies include data for English-dominant students, and it is important to note that positive academic outcomes have been even more consistently documented in the research for students who are dominant in a language other than English (e.g., Serafini et al., 2022). In other words, students who do not have English as their home language have been shown even more consistently to benefit from WL study, especially immersion or bilingual study.
These findings extend to nationally normed tests for high school students like the SAT as well. In an early study looking at over 1800 students, Cooper (1987) revealed that students who took world languages in school achieved higher test scores than those who did not take them. It also showed that the length of WL study had positive correlations with students’ SAT scores. Cooper et al. (2008) revisited the relationship between world language learning and English verbal ability, as measured by the verbal section of the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT), investigating whether students (N=9077) who had taken WL courses outperformed those who had not on SAT verbal tests. The results confirmed that WL learners tended to score better on the SAT verbal section.
Recommendations
Educators and administrators seeking to enhance the overall academic profile of their students and their institution should establish sustained WL programs that allow students to develop high levels of proficiency in the non-English language. Moreover, the literature clearly suggests that students who begin and continue language study from a young age benefit more academically as they continue in WL study, so programs should be designed with that outcome in mind.