Strategic Processing in Grammar Learning: Do Multilinguals Use More Strategies?

Multilinguals appear to become better at learning additional languages the more languages they know, and in particular, to be faster at learning grammar. This study investigates the use of grammar learning strategies in 144 participants who knew between 2 and 12 languages each, using a language background questionnaire, a set of 40 grammar learning strategies on a 5-point Likert scale, and questions on other strategies used. Findings: the more languages learners knew, a) the greater the number of grammar learning strategies they used, b) the more frequently they used them, and c) the greater the number of participants who added their own grammar learning strategies to the 40 presented in the questionnaire. In addition, the multilingual participants as a group used more of the 40 strategies than participants with knowledge of only two languages, and also responded ‘5 – I always do this’ on the Likert scale more often. It is concluded that there may be a threshold effect for the use of grammar learning strategies so that an increase in the number and frequency of strategies used occurs to a greater extent during the acquisition of the third language, increasing more gradually in additional languages, than occurs in L2 learning.