Bilingualism as a resource for foreign language learning of language minority students? Empirical evidence from a longitudinal study during primary and secondary school in Germany

This study investigates the effect of bilingualism on the achievement in English as a foreign language from elementary to secondary school. Using longitudinal data of 1032 German students from sixth to eighth grade, we examined if speaking both a minority language at home and the instruction language presents an advantageous condition for English foreign language development. Controlling for confounded background characteristics, the regression analyses revealed that, although a significant advantage of bilingualism is found in elementary school, it disappears as students proceed into secondary school, yielding differential gains for the language minority and monolingual groups. Moreover, the level of exposure to the minority language plays an important role for the English achievement development for bilingual students as they proceed into secondary school.