While I'm completely in favor of people learning new languages (because it's fun, not to mention the communication aspect), I'm not sure how much I believe this particular study.
They admit that this is a unique school for languages: from zero to fluency in just over a year, by practicing every waking hour of every day, at a pace not seen in any other language school. Do the medicine and science students used as the control group study as hard as this, and on the same deadline? Did they try looking at people who studied languages, but not at breakneck speed?
It seems to me that it's entirely possible, based on this data, that the causative factor is not that they studied languages, but that they studied so intently. I don't doubt that science students study hard, but language immersion schools can make it so everything you read, write, hear, or speak all day every day is 100% in the language you're studying. That's a hard feat to match: how do you make eating breakfast or checking email a medical lesson?
They admit that this is a unique school for languages: from zero to fluency in just over a year, by practicing every waking hour of every day, at a pace not seen in any other language school. Do the medicine and science students used as the control group study as hard as this, and on the same deadline? Did they try looking at people who studied languages, but not at breakneck speed?
It seems to me that it's entirely possible, based on this data, that the causative factor is not that they studied languages, but that they studied so intently. I don't doubt that science students study hard, but language immersion schools can make it so everything you read, write, hear, or speak all day every day is 100% in the language you're studying. That's a hard feat to match: how do you make eating breakfast or checking email a medical lesson?