BiPra-Text – Bilingual Practices for Text Comprehension and Production

The systematic, planned use of more than one language for learning processes is considered to have positive effects on the understanding of educational content, on the development of language skills as well as on emotion and motivation. Regarding typical language practices of multilinguals and the potential of using both languages for learning processes, institutionalized bilingual learning environments could be a fruitful approach to adaptively support the educational processes of multilingual students. However, there is hardly any empirical evidence to test this assumption, especially for students growing up multilingually in the context of bilingual education. Accordingly, the project investigates potential differences between bilingual and monolingual learning environments for text comprehension and production in fourth and fifth-grade students who are taught in English and German.

The study aims to contribute to closing the research gap on the effectiveness of bilingual learning environments and the evaluation of these by multilingual, bilingually educated pupils. The study also examines how two languages can be used systematically to support learning processes.