There is evidence globally that bi/multilingualism is the norm and mono-lingualism the exception.
Children with more then one language are known to develop better language proficiency and an in depth understanding and control of their mother tongue. Their ability to learn and recall vocabulary is better and they have more opportunity to transfer knowledge and language rules from one language to the other, making it easier to learn overlapping cognates (words in two languages that share similar meaning,spelling and pronunciation) in form and meaning.
Unfortunately many erroneous beliefs still exist and persist with regard to language acquisition in bilingual children. Practices should promote multilingualism.
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