Multilingualism is often associated with advantages for acquiring additional languages. Theoretical approaches explain these advantages by assuming a Common Underlying Proficiency or a Metalinguistic Awareness. At the State Europe School in Berlin, students from different language backgrounds receive instruction in German and a partner language…

This study compares the English and French proficiencies of three groups of early French immersion participants at the Grade 6 level: Canadian-born English-speaking, Canadian-born multilingual, and immigrant multilingual students. In addition to English and French multi-skills tests, the participants completed a questionnaire designed to gather…

The classroom demographics in French immersion (FI) programs across Canada are changing: There are a growing number of multilingual students who are learning English as a second language (L2) and French as a third language (L3). However, little is known about the development of French language proficiency and reading skills of multilingual…

The present studies revealed different factors associated with the reported advantages found in fully bilingual children for metalinguistic awareness and executive control. Participants were 100 children in Study 1 and 80 children in Study 2 in the process of becoming bilingual by attending immersion programs. In both studies, "level of…

Anglophone children in Grades 2 and 5 who attended an intensive French immersion program were examined for linguistic and metalinguistic ability in English and French. Measures of linguistic proficiency (vocabulary and grammatical knowledge) were consistently higher in English and remained so even after 5 years of immersion education in French.…

It is generally believed that study abroad (SA) is the most efficient and successful way to acquire proficiency in a second language (L2). SA is a crucial component of students' second language acquisition (SLA) process, for it puts them in situations in which they can use the language on a daily basis and interact with native speakers. More than…

In a Grade 9 core French class, the teacher designed a multi-stage project in which students composed original children's stories in French; illustrated their stories to produce picture books; then, in groups, adapted one group member's story into a play script; and, finally, dramatized the scripts for children from the local French immersion…

During an investigation into the L2 proficiency and L3 acquisition skills of 10- to 12-year-olds in Irish primary schools, questions of metalinguistic awareness and cross-linguistic influence were raised. Do children who are more balanced bilinguals develop a higher sense of metalinguistic awareness than less balanced bilinguals? What evidence of…

A survey of research on French as a second language (FSL) education in Canada suggests that French immersion (FI) students enjoy significant linguistic, academic, and cognitive benefits. We organize our summary of the advantages of FI around these three themes, comparing students' proficiency in French and English across various FI programs, and…

The empirical study reported here investigated predictors of oral proficiency gain to the Advanced level resulting from immersion study abroad. The data consisted of 22 preimmersion Oral Proficiency Interviews (OPIs) of American students who participated in semester immersion programs in Moscow and St. Petersburg, and received a score of…