Does bilingualism correlate with or predict higher proficiency in L3 English? A contrastive study of monolingual and bilingual learners

Abstract

This study investigates whether English in instructed settings is more successfully acquired by learners who are already bilingual in comparison to those with a monolingual background. There remains substantial controversy regarding potential advantages of bilingual speakers in their acquisition of additional languages, especially in heritage speaker contexts. We here contribute to this discussion by analysing the English C-test results of 1,718 bilingual and monolingual students of grades 7 and 9, sampled in schools across Germany. The bilingual students speak either Russian or Turkish (heritage language) and German (majority language). The monolingual control group was raised in German only. The main predictor variables are reading fluency and comprehension in German and the heritage languages. Additional predictor variables include school type, school year, socioeconomic status, cognitive ability, amongst others. Using correlation and regression analyses we test if reading fluency and comprehension impact proficiency in English and if bilingual students enjoy advantages over their monolingual German peers. The results reveal no systematic advantage of bilingual students, although we find significant correlations between reading fluency and comprehension and C-test results. School type, cognitive skills, among others, are predictors for English performance, whereas socioeconomic status returns no significant effect.

Heritage languages and the ʻmultilingual boostʼ: intercomprehension skills of Russian and Polish heritage speakers in Germany

“…more lexical transfer bases), but also to conceptual knowledge and more general cognitive skills like executive control or higher metalinguistic awareness in bilinguals (see Section 1). Our findings are thus in line with previous research that casted doubt on a general bilingual advantage, at least in heritage speaker contexts (see Berthele and Udry 2019;Berthele and Vanhove 2020;Lorenz et al 2020 for similar results).…”

“…However, the outcomes of studies dealing with a proposed "multilingual boost effect" (Berthele and Udry 2019) in L3 acquisition by heritage bilinguals are again far from being unequivocal. While some studies on the acquisition of English or Romance foreign languages at school yielded supportive evidence for a bilingual advantage, others did not (see Lorenz et al 2020 for a recent overview). In light of this confusing picture, our contribution provides new evidence on potential bilingual advantages in contexts of additional language learning.…”

Bilingual advantages in foreign language learning: evidence from primary-school pupils with developmental language disorder

“…However, there are also studies that found no differences between monolingual and bilingual FL learners (Jaspaert and Lemmens, 1990;Sanders and Meijers, 1995;Schoonen et al, 2002;Edele et al, 2018;Zoutenbier and Zwitserlood, 2019;Lorenz et al, 2020), or even found that bilinguals were outperformed by their monolingual peers (Van Gelderen et al, 2003). For instance, Jaspaert and Lemmens (1990) measured L3 Dutch proficiency of Italian-French immigrant bilinguals in Brussels and compared it to that of French monolinguals.…”

“…Bilingual benefits are also more likely to be found in additive contexts (where both first languages are maintained, as in Spain or Canada) than in subtractive contexts (where L2 is acquired at the expense of L1) (Cummins, 2000). Other relevant factors that have been proposed in the literature to explain the controversial findings include typological proximity between L3 and the previously acquired languages (Swain et al, 1990;Schepens et al, 2016), levels of bilingual proficiency (Lasagabaster, 2000;Muñoz, 2000;Sagasta Errasti, 2003;Edele et al, 2018;Lorenz et al, 2020), language use in the home (Maluch et al, 2016), code-switching practices (Maluch and Kempert, 2017) and literacy in the home language (Swain et al, 1990;Keshavarz and Astaneh, 2004;Rauch et al, 2011).…”

Acquiring the language of instruction: Effect of home language experience

“…There is some research examining this question with children learning a foreign language in a non-immersion educational context. Lorenz et al (2020) reported no difference in the acquisition of English by monolingual (second language) and bilingual (third language) adolescents in Germany, but potential cultural and socioeconomic differences may have impacted results. Little information was provided regarding parental education, parental proficiency in English, or interaction with the English language outside of the classroom, and it is possible that there were socioeconomic differences between the language groups.…”