Being multilingual offers advantages when children are learning English

Children's home languages have a clear impact on how Norwegian children learn English, according to a new study.

“Children who use multiple home languages besides Norwegian are often accustomed to switching between different languages depending on the situation,” says Bjørn H. Handeland.

(Photo: Colorbox)

Jan Arve Olsen Informasjonssjef

Presented by: University of Agder

Published 16 April 2025 - 00:01

Children who speak languages other than Norwegian at home have different, and in some cases better, prerequisites when learning English.

This is shown in the doctoral thesis by Bjørn H. Handeland, university librarian at the University of Agder.

“What surprised me the most is that the findings are so clear,” he says.

He explains that children who use multiple home languages besides Norwegian are often used to switching between different languages depending on the situation. This gives them a potential advantage in language learning at school.

“This is primarily about seeing the benefit of being able to understand and express oneself in different languages, but also about being comfortable using them,” he says.

Bjørn H. Handeland's study shows that it is important to understand and use children's language backgrounds in language teaching.

Developed a new language test

Handeland has examined English skills among Norwegian primary school pupils from 6th to 8th grade. The students are between 11 and 14 years old.

He has investigated how the linguistic background of children who speak Norwegian, Arabic, Slavic, and Baltic languages affects how they learn English.

Handeland has focused on the children's language skills, use of language, and their attitudes towards language and language learning.

Using a questionnaire developed specifically for the study, the children reported which languages they knew and in which situations they used them. They also reported their attitudes towards language and language learning.

The children also completed a specially developed language test where they were tested on five areas related to English grammar and sentence construction: subject-verb agreement, aspect in verb phrases, word order, use of prepositions, and definiteness marking.

Language skills and attitudes

The study includes 580 children from 6th to 8th grade. It reveals clear differences between pupils who use Norwegian as their only language at home and those who use other languages either fully or partially.

One of the main findings is that language background does not significantly affect the number of mistakes schoolchildren make, but rather the types of mistakes they make.

“Children who use multiple languages in daily life also have different experiences of the advantages multilingualism can offer in society. This experience is not shared by children who only have Norwegian as their home language,” says Handeland.

Different views on language learning

The findings show that children who use other languages in addition to Norwegian have more positive attitudes towards the languages they know. This is especially true for languages spoken within the family.

Even though it is often a language the children have not had formal training in, and therefore have limited skills in, it is still important to them.

Handeland has also looked at what English skills can mean for the pupils.

“Children who primarily speak only Norwegian at home consider English skills important for academic and professional purposes. Those who use one or more home languages besides Norwegian place greater emphasis on the social and societal functions of the language. They have more experience with language as a gateway in society and perhaps understand even more that language is about communication,” he says.

There are also clear differences in children's skills in English grammar. In both groups, there were on average just over 0.5 mistakes per sentence, but the types of mistakes were different.

Several different error patterns that can be traced to grammatical structures from Norwegian, Arabic, and Slavic and Baltic languages were observed in the language test in the study.

This means that the structures in the languages one knows beforehand affect what one finds difficult to master when learning English.

Personality traits matter

Handeland explains that some personality traits are often associated with multilingualism. A trait like openness will be important for multilingualism because it helps with understanding and communicating with different cultures and societies.

"Openness and multilingualism often go hand in hand, as language learning is also about communication and understanding of culture and society," he says.

Handeland believes that the results of the study are important for language teaching in schools. It's about understanding and using children's language backgrounds in language teaching.

"If one can increase children's awareness of what they already know, work towards understanding language as a system, and help them reflect on the structures in the language, one can facilitate good learning of both English and other languages," he says.

Reference:

Handeland, B.H. English as an Lx: Multilingualism, transfer and interactions with background profile, Doctoral thesis at the University of Agder, 2024.

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Read the Norwegian version of this article on forskning.no