El papel del bilingüísmo en la adquisición de una lengua extranjeraEl caso del aprendizaje del inglés en Guipúzcoa

Laburpena

The paper deals with the acquisition of a foreign language, in this case English, and its relationship to bilingualism in the Basque Country. Several dimensions of Basque-Spanish bilingualism (early bilingualism, bilingual competence, family bilingualism, bilingual education, and sociocultural bilingualism) are analysed in relation to level of achievement in learning English as a foreign language. Subjects were monolingual and bilingual students from six secondary school in Gipuzkoa where the language of instruction was either Basque or Spanish. They were asked to fill in questionnaires and were administered English language tests which included several measures of language competence (listening, reading, speaking, writing, vocabulary, and syntax). Results are discussed in relation to the positive effects of bilingualism on the development of linguistic and metalinguistic abilities in the Basque Country and elsewhere.