Cognition and Second Language Experience: How Are Executive Function and Second Language Acquisition Related?

Bilingual children’s better performance on cognitive tasks has been explained by greater proficiency in executive function (EF) compared with monolingual peers. This is postulated to stem from quality and complexity in their linguistic environment. Many international studies of executive function adopt leading indicators such as academic performance, overall well-being and happiness. This chapter takes a broader view on bilingualism, including child experience of instructed second language (L2) acquisition and research attempts to map relationships between this experience and EF. The focus is on investigations of causality and studies of the bidirectional influence between EF and L2, suggesting that individual childhood differences improve them as L2 learners and that early L2 experience, in turn, commands a lasting influence on EF. The controversy of the claimed bilingual cognitive advantage is also discussed, and methodological issues are raised. A recent call to re-examine EF to include a broader range of the skills relied upon by children to achieve specific goals is briefly introduced with implications for future studies of the EF/L2 relationship.