The benefits of being bilingual in the acquistion of English as a foreign language
Roč.7,č.2(2017)
Abstrakt
Klíčová slova:
bilingual; acquisition; English; foreign Language; benefits
It has been widely discussed whether learners of English as a second language (L2) should use their mother tongue when acquiring the second/third language. As a result, numerous studies have been carried out analyzing the role and the effects of the mother tongue (L1) in the acquisition of English as a second/foreign language. However, this study is concerned with the benefits and effects of bilingualism in the acquisition of English as a third language/foreign language. The majority of the Albanian learners at our University (South East European University, Tetovo, Republic of Macedonia) are bilingual. There may be students who know more languages, but we will assume that most of them are bilingual. Albanian is their mother tongue. At the same time, they start learning Macedonian at a very early age, starting at the age of six or seven. This shows that students already have two languages at their disposal to compare and transfer when they acquire the structures of the third language (English). With this study, we want to find out whether being bilingual is beneficial to students, and whether they can use the two languages in successfully acquiring the structures taught. Furthermore, this study will analyze if being bilingual presents an obstacle due to the mother tongue or second language causing interference, which would be an example of negative transfer.
bilingual; acquisition; English; foreign Language; benefits
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