Bilingual advantages in early foreign language learning: Effects of the minority and the majority language

This longitudinal study tests effects of minority and majority-language proficiency in the early foreign language learning of English in German primary schools. In a study with monolingual German and bilingual students who speak a minority language at home (N = 200), we find that the bilingual group scores lower than the monolingual group overall, yet bilingual students outperform monolingual German students in vocabulary and grammar in early foreign language learning, once socio-economic factors are controlled for. Vocabulary in the minority language acts as a significant predictor for early achievement in the foreign language for bilingual students. However, positive effects of bilingualism abate from grades 3 to 4, and proficiency in the majority language emerges as a significant predictor of English vocabulary. This change suggests that bilingual advantages wither unless they are explicitly fostered by teachers and educators

L1 effects in the early L3 acquisition of vocabulary and grammar

This chapter explores cross-linguistic influences in the lexical and grammatical acquisition of L3 English among child L2 learners of German with a variety of L1 backgrounds. For lexical development, we find interrelations in vocabulary size between L1, L2 and English lexicons. For grammar, a sentence repetition task does not show any differences between learner groups. Instead, all learners transfer German word order to English, irrespective of the properties of the L1 grammar. We discuss these findings in the context of current formal approaches to transfer in L3 acquisition and sketch some implications for foreign language teaching in a multilingual classroom

Do minority-language and majority-language students benefit from pedagogical translanguaging in early foreign language development?

This paper reports findings of a project on pedagogical translanguaging (PTL) among 128 fourth-grade students learning English as a foreign language (EFL) in German primary schools. Over a period of six months, 20% of lesson time in EFL classes was devoted to multilingualism involving students’ minority languages. In a control group pre-post-test design, we evaluated the effects of PTL on English vocabulary, grammar, and metalinguistic awareness. The longitudinal results show significant gains for both majority-language and minority-language students across all competences. Yet, the PTL group did not outperform a comparison group that received regular, i.e. target-language-only EFL teaching. We critically discuss the scope and potentials of PTL in early FL teaching