Where: Newcastle Hilton Hotel
Time: 18:00
With: Prof Vivian Cook, Newcastle University

Abstract

The advantages of bilingualism:

This talk will describe the attributes of bilinguals in terms of their differences from monolinguals. These include: ways of thinking, uses for language, awareness of language, knowledge of the first language, brain structures and processes, and knowledge of writing. Since probably most people in the world use a second language in their everyday lives, this has important implications for society and education, not least for countries with a high proportion of monolinguals.

Biography of Vivian Cook

Vivian Cook is a Professor of Applied Linguistics who teaches and supervises postgraduates mostly from overseas in various aspects of English language teaching and second language learning. His main interests are how people learn second languages and how writing works in different languages. He is a co-editor of the new journal Writing System Research and founder of the European Second Language Association. He has written books on the learning and teaching of English, on Chomsky and on writing systems, including popular books on English spelling and vocabulary; he has given talks in countries ranging from Chile to Japan, Canada to Iran and Cuba to Norway. His current book project is on bilingual cognition – how people think who use two languages.