There is also evidence that being bilingual is related to higher levels of creativity.

That relationship has mainly been demonstrated for naturalistic bilingualism, in other words, for children who are bilingual because they are brought up in an environment where they are exposed to more than one language. Researchers such as Leikin (2012) have found that bilingual children show more mental flexibility and creative solutions to problems.

But what about learning a language in a classroom? does that help learners to be more creative?

The answer to that question is much less clear.

A recent review of the cognitive benefits of language learning (Woll & Wei, 2019) identified only six studies that had investigated this issue.

Looking at all six studies together, Woll and Wei (2019) highlight that language learning had a strong effect on creativity for learners from age 7 to 57, especially for verbal measures of creative flexibility. There is also some evidence that learners have to have reached a certain level of language proficiency in order for language learning to promote creativity (Landry, 1973). It is also worth noting that several studies involved all or mainly females, and that in one, the impact on creativity was found to be greater for females than for males (Mendonça & Fleith, 2005).

Why might language learning have a positive impact on creativity? Does it matter what kind of language learning experience learners have? What do you think?

Note down some answers and then compare them with the next section.