Learner Strategies and the Perception of Cross-Linguistic Interaction in Young L3 Learners

Founded on psycholinguistic insights into the interaction between the language systems of multilinguals and the key role that language learning awareness carries in the development of L3 students’ multilingual systems, the paper deals with the use of learner strategies and the perception of cross-linguistic interaction. The results of the empirical research carried out on an extensive sample of primary school students whose L1 is Croatian, while L2 and L3 are English or German, show that primary school L3 learners apply both examined components of language learning awareness in learning and using languages. However, the findings also suggest that their multilingual potential is neither used nor developed sufficiently in primary school language teaching.