Age meets multilingualism: Influence of starting age on L3 acquisition across different learner populations

This paper combines two major strands of multilingualism research, namely that of the role of starting age in (multiple) foreign language (FL) learning, and that of the influence of bilingualism and biliteracy on third language (L3) acquisition. I report on the results of a five-year longitudinal study in Switzerland, in which we assessed the English development of 636 secondary school students, who had all learned Standard German and French at primary school, but only half of whom had had English from third grade (age 8) onwards, the remainder having started English instruction five years later at secondary school. The main goals were to analyze (1) whether early bilinguals were more successful than later bilinguals and monolinguals at learning a new language from primary school through the end of secondary school; and (2) how literacy skills in the home language(s) affected literacy development in EFL. The findings suggest that different learner populations (monolinguals, simultaneous bilinguals, sequential bilinguals) are differentially affected by age of EFL onset effects, partly due to individual differences (e.g. (bi)literacy skills), partly due to contextual effects that mediate successful L3 outcomes