Investigating the relationship of working memory and inhibitory control: Bilingual education and pedagogical implications in elementary school

Abstract

Present study aims to shed light on the relationship of working memory and executive functioning in bilingual elementary school children when compared with monolingual population of the same age. The investigation of the relationship between working memory and language learning abilities of children, who are bilingual, is particularly important as it plays a key role in understanding the literacy and language competence of bilingual populations. The purpose of this study was to examine Verbal Working Memory and Executive Functions in 20 bilingual elementary school students who were compared to 20 monolingual school-age students in different cognitive tasks. The research results showed that bilingual students did not appear to perform better in Working Memory compared to the performance of monolingual students of the same age. Correspondingly, bilingual students performed better in the task of inhibitory control and cognitive change. The findings of the present study reinforce the hypothesis that when learning a language, be it the mother tongue or the foreign /second language, the working memory does not correlate to all executive functions but forms a separate cognitive function. The implications of bilingual learning strategies in multicultural class settings are discussed as a pedagogical memory frame that can empower academic achievement while acknowledging the importance of acquiring standardized language skills by promoting a variety of memory strategies.