The Global Insights on Language Learning Symposium

Recently, I had the opportunity to attend a symposium titled “Global Insights on Language Learning.” Organized as part of a Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research project, the event brought together experts and enthusiasts in the field of multilingual education. The two speakers were Annick De Houwer and Suzanne Quay, who both questioned the efficacy of our increasing efforts to bring multilingual education to learners at an earlier and earlier age.

De Houwer presented the following:

• Children easily forget languages. 20-25% of children who started out as bilinguals at birth end up becoming monolinguals at school age.
• Early second language acquisition (starting before the age of 6) is a laborious process, and the experience can be traumatic sometimes. Children who start later often have an easier time.
• Most studies show that the ones that end up with the most gain in language acquisition are those who started in secondary school with very good teachers.

She laments the prevalent “the earlier the better” myth, which resulted in annual global spending of 11.35 billion USD (in 2021) on foreign language education. This money, she argued could be spent better elsewhere.

Quay presented the results of her survey of some 200 trilinguals she recruited through her personal contacts. While her sampling prevents us from generalizing her findings, the patterns she found are still fascinating:

• The stronger the person’s L1, the stronger his/her L2 and L3.
• Most trilinguals in her sample learned their languages in educational settings, but they had at least some overseas experience.
• Most trilinguals in her sample learned their languages sequentially (rather than simultaneously)
• Those who became trilinguals during their teens had the greatest proficiency in their three languages compared to those who became trilinguals earlier or later.
• 52% of the trilinguals (in her sample) today started out as monolinguals in their childhood.