Can exposure to a foreign language in the first year of school enhance divergent thinking skills? Ninety-nine monolingual children from predominantly White neighbourhoods (MAge = 57.7 months, SD 1.2; 47 girls) attending bilingual schools, schools with weekly foreign language lessons, or schools without a foreign language provision (= controls) completed divergent thinking and executive function tasks at the beginning of the school year and 24 weeks later. The groups did not differ on creativity measures at the beginning of the school year. Only bilingual school children and weekly language learners improved divergent thinking at the second testing point, with the former significantly outperforming controls on creative fluency and flexibility. Improvements could not be explained by executive function development. Therefore, a considerable amount of exposure to a foreign language in early formal education appears to boost creative thinking.

中文翻译：

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双语教育提高了小学一年级的创造性流畅性和灵活性


在学校的第一年接触外语可以增强发散性思维能力吗？来自白人为主的社区的 99 名单语儿童（MAge = 57.7 个月，SD 1.2;47 名女孩）就读于双语学校、每周上外语课的学校或没有提供外语的学校（= 对照）在学年开始和 24 周后完成了发散性思维和执行功能任务。在学年开始时，这些群体在创造力指标上没有差异。在第二个测试点，只有双语学龄儿童和每周语言学习者改善了发散思维，前者在创造性流利度和灵活性方面的表现明显优于对照组。改善不能用执行功能发展来解释。因此，在早期正规教育中大量接触外语似乎可以促进创造性思维。