Multilingualism, language acquisition and linguistic awareness: Are multilingual people better language learners?

Abstract

The acquisition of a second or additional language, in whatever learning environment it might occur, is always bound to external and internal factors, about whose effects on the acquisition process we still do not know enough. One of these factors is the individual multilingualism. In my contribution I would like to start from the hypothesis that, in principle, multilingual people, whether they speak two or more languages, are better foreign language learners in school learning contexts than monolingual people. The reason for this is that they develop a higher degree of language awareness and language acquisition awareness. At the same time, I maintain, however, that we are not deriving enough advantage from this potential of a very large group of to an adequate extend.