Multicompetence Approaches to Language Proficiency Development in Multilingual Education

Abstract

Due to a significant increase in interest in the phenomenon of multilingualism, research on multilingualism and multilingual education has grown over the last two decades. Some influential developments in research on second language acquisition and bilingualism have begun to exert an impact on second language teaching and bi- and multilingual education. These concerns include the symbiosis of the hitherto isolated fields of second language learning and bilingualism, the introduction of the concept of multicompetence, reflecting a bilingual view of bilingualism, and the application of dynamic systems theory to second language acquisition and multilingualism. After an outline of the Chomskyan concept of language competence, these new developments will be described in more detail and the most important areas of research which have provided contributions to the development of multicompetence approaches to language proficiency will be examined. A central theme of the paper is that multilingual education can only be successful if the cognitive potential of multilingualism is explicitly acknowledged on the societal level.