This study explores the relationship of early immersion education, socioeconomic background, and cognitive gains of young learners. We examine the possible advantages of early bilingual education and the impact of family socioeconomic status (SES) for the cognitive development of children. Participants (N = 39) were students at regular (German) or…

In two visual-world eye-tracking experiments, we explore the extent to which conflicting first-language (L1) based grammatical parses influence second-language (L2) learners' on-line and off-line interpretation of sentences in the L2. We used cross-linguistic structural priming to potentially boost competition from the L1 grammar during the…

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…

Lexical development in first language (L1) Turkish and second language (L2) German in two- to three-year-old children was examined, using parental vocabulary checklists in Turkish and in German. Children showed strong Turkish dominance in the number of lexical items they produced, which was due to the more frequent exposure to Turkish and higher…

It is widely assumed that the British are poorer modern foreign language (MFL) learners than their fellow Europeans. Motivation has often been seen as the main cause of this perceived disparity in language learning success. However, there have also been suggestions that curricular and pedagogical factors may play a part. This article reports a…

Examined the foreign-language-learning abilities of 14- to 15-year olds in Britain, Germany, and Greece. Comparison of results from tests of students' foreign vocabulary knowledge indicated that British students had only one-third to one-half of the foreign language vocabulary knowledge of Greek and German students. They also spent less time…