Resumen de Emergence of patterns of strategic competence in young plurilingual children involved in French international schools

Emmanuelle Le Pichon, Henriëtte de Swart, Jacob A.S. Vorstman, Huub van den Bergh

• In a previous study, we demonstrated that the experience of learning a new language positively influences the metacognitive awareness of young plurilingual children in terms of willingness to communicate and strategic competence. In the present study, we expanded the analyses of the observations of 101 children to examine two hypotheses. First, we hypothesized that the strategies reported by the children would group into a limited number of strategic clusters. Second, we predicted that the children's awareness of strategies would depend not only on the experience of learning a new language but also on age. The factor analysis of the strategies used indicated three clusters, which we termed Speaker, Hearer, and External orientations. The analyses showed a significant effect of learning a new language in a formal context and after the age of four years, abbreviated LLE, that is Language Learning Experience, on the Speaker orientation. In addition, age showed a linear effect on the three identified clusters of strategies. These findings are highly relevant as they may help to shed light into why young plurilingual learners use strategies differently.