Journal of K-12 Educational Research 23 graders participating in an elementary two-way duallanguage program, using the Spanish MAP Reading Fluency assessment, an adaptive computer-based reading instrument to monitor growth. The Spanish MAP Reading Fluency assessment tracked students’ progress in Spanish L2 picture vocabulary, listening comprehension, and sentence reading fluency over the course of a semester to determine the L2 teaching resource’s effectiveness in enhancing Spanish L2 growth and achievement. Literature Review Continual interaction with two languages and frequent cultural context switching strengthens neural networks and cognitive flexibility (Bialystok et al., 2012; Carlson & Meltzoff, 2008; Li et al., 2014). Such experiences and enhanced processes improve transitions between mental operations and sharpen executive functions, providing bilinguals with a cognitive advantage over monolinguals (Bialystok, 1999, 2011; Kaiser et al., 2015; Kroll & Bialystok, 2013; Li et al., 2014; Miyake et al., 2000, as cited in Stocco et al., 2014). This phenomenon is known as the bilingual advantage (Bialystok et al., 2012; Kroll & Bialystok, 2013; Stocco et al., 2014; van den Noort et al., 2019). However, few neurological studies had explored the presence of the bilingual advantage and brain activity among bilingual children until Barac et al. (2016) uncovered the earliest detection of a connection between higher bilingual executive functions and advanced cerebral neural activity. Bilingualism and Brain Development Barac et al. (2016) employed electrophysiological methods to examine bilingualism’s impact on executive control and neuroplasticity in bilingual and monolingual children. Electrophysiology is a neuroscience division concentrated on the relationship between neuron electrical activity and signal causation (Carter & Shieh, 2015). While both groups performed equally on simplistic tasks, bilingual children displayed greater gains on complex ones, indicating the presence of the bilingual advantage. However, to ascertain the cerebrum’s capacity to compute cognitive tasks, brain activity needed to be captured or imaged during task performance at precisely the right moment (Beres, 2017). Researchers captured neural activity and prefrontal cortex activations during cognitive task performance using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), which, unlike stationary fMRI, allows mobility and study during dynamic activities, especially among active children (Chen et al., 2020; Glover, 2012; Moriguchi & Lertladaluck, 2020). fNIRS studies yielded inconclusive results, showing the presence of the bilingual advantage only when factors, such as experience and schooling, were accounted for (van den Noort et al., 2019). Similarly, Carlson and Meltzoff (2008) found significant cognitive advantages in bilingual children only after controlling for age, verbal ability, and socioeconomic status (SES). Moreover, neuroimaging studies highlight the prefrontal cortex’s key role in cognitive tasks, showing an association between bilingual individuals possessing increased gray matter with improved processing and cognitive development (Carlson & Meltzoff, 2008; Kaiser et al., 2015; Li et al., 2014; Mechelli et al., 2004; Moore et al., 2017). Continuous bilingual language use fosters brain adaptability, producing structural changes and denser gray matter detectable using various methods of brain imaging (Bialystok, 2011; Stocco et al., 2014). Second Language Acquisition Linguistic research provides valuable insights into the intricate relationship between L2 acquisition, cognitive processes, and educational outcomes that bilingual learners face in academic settings. Cummins (1976) argued that bilingual children’s enhanced problem-solving skills arise from their access to a bilingual repertoire. Cummins (1976) contended that limited L2 proficiency, not bilingualism itself, explains any inadequate L2 academic outcomes, thereby challenging earlier linguistic research, which suggested that bilingualism hindered cognitive development and academic performance (Macnamara, 1967; Peal & Lambert, 1962). Cummins’ (1976) linguistic work shifted the focus from viewing bilingualism as a problem to understanding the broader contextual factors affecting bilingual students’ academic performance (Cummins, 1979; Macnamara, 1967; Peal & Lambert, 1962).
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