Moving from adult to child L3 acquisition: a look at early foreign language grammars

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A general question guiding my research in the PhD has been whether acquiring a third language involves the same processes as acquiring a second language? The answer to this question is not straightforward. Within the last decade, researchers have been studying the similarities and differences between these two processes. An obvious difference between the two is the number of the languages (already known, even if to different degrees) the learners bring to the table when they start acquiring the new language. In the case of second language acquisition, the learner only has knowledge of one language (i.e., his or her native language). Therefore, it is easy to claim that if there is influence from one language to the new one that is being acquired, this influence can only come from the native language. In third, or further, language acquisition, the story is somewhat more complex. The learner starts the acquisition of this new language with knowledge, at least two distinct languages. Gaining a clearer understanding of the manner in which multilingualism impacts our mind-brain and our ability to understand how we acquire new languages may help elucidate ways in which language can be more effectively taught in the classroom, how language learning can benefit individuals and societies, and how multilingualism can build bridges between communities. So far, as I showed in a systematic review of the field I conducted in my doctoral dissertation, most of the work on L3/Ln acquisition has been done in adult language acquisition. Even if an important portion of multilingual learners are child L3 learners, and we do not know much, if anything at all, about whether the processes that are relevant for adult L3 acquisition are also applicable in L3 acquisition during childhood. As was shown in the early 2000s, acquiring a second language in childhood has some similarities with acquiring it in adulthood, but it also has quite a bit of differences. Therefore, it should not be surprising if L3 acquisition in childhood is somewhat different to L3 acquisition in adulthood. The question that one ponders might be why this is relevant for societies. According to the Department of Education, 20.6% of the pupils starting Key Stage 3 last year were, in fact, L3 learners of a foreign language (French, Spanish or German). Understanding how the processes involved in L3 acquisition can be highly beneficial for these learners. If we know how one acquires a third language, then we can understand the difficulties that these pupils will encounter and we might be able, by collaborating with teachers, to improve some of the teaching techniques to enhance the learning process.