intelligence that aids in bilingualism vs bilingualism that aids in intelligence

[Taenia]

I have to do a research for bilingualism, and I need some responses for my questionnaire. This is probably not directly about English but it involves those who have a second language or more than two languages. And to answer this questionnaire you'd probably need to know language. It doesn't have to be accurate Engish, all responses count, as long as I can understand them. Please anyone help, I need all the help I can get.

As Peal and Lambert (1962) once concluded, after finding in their study that bilinguals were better academically at school compared to monolinguals, that bilinguals weren't at a disadvantage in intelligence. And also wrote:

"It is impossible to state from the present study whether the more intelligent child became bilingual or whether bilingualism aided his intellectual development."

Which one do you think it is? Is it the intelligence that aids in bilingualism? or Is it the bilingualism that aids in intelligence? Is there any reason to why you think it is that one?

Please also consider to participate in my questionnaire with the link below:

http://www.eSurveysPro.com/Survey.aspx?id=aca4ce2f-94e5-4218-8c48-c3e8c28196c6

Any repsonse is much appreciated.

Thanks.

[BelajarEnglish]

Hai Taenia ,

Is bilingualism aids the intelligence or vice versa, is intelligence assists the bilingualism?
I don’t know the definite answers.
However, I may provide you some information (hopefully useful). I am a bilingual. I knew around 5 languages.
I am a Chinese that grew up in Indonesia. My father and my Mom speak different dialect; therefore I understand two Chinese dialects. Besides, when I was a small kid, I watch a lot of Chinese drama in Mandarin, it helped me to gain ability to communicate verbally in Mandarin (I don’t know how to write and read Chinese character). Further, I attended school that conduct in Indonesian. And at the moment I study in Australia. In short, I start to learn languages before I even commence my formal education.

Academically, I am not performing really well, perhaps far behind to monolinguals. However, I have to admit that most my classmates that know more that one languages show impressive results. Perhaps more that 70% of first class students are oversee students. Most of them came form Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia. To be more convincing, most if not all medal’s students (The award that give for the best final year student) in this past decade came from those countries. From the background, I can tell that most of them are bilinguals like me.

However, most oversee students study harder as we need to pay full fees, while local student just need to pay approximately 0.25*the full fees (in case we fail any subjects we have to repay a huge amount of money while local’s student don’t have to).

I understand that this may not give the clarity that you wanted, however, I will try to provide as much as information as you needed.( just reply this post). I hope this help.

Thanks

Herry