Methods of Teaching Bilingual and Trilingual Children

This article shed light on language training of bilingual and trilingual children, relationship between bilingualism / trilingualism and cognitive development, and also general principles of language teaching in multilingual regions. In the neuroscience of the last decade, it has been shown that bilingualism and multilinguism positively affect brain development and slow down the onset of cognitive decline; but, according to available scientific data, there is no significant difference in neuropsychological status of bilingual and trilingual children. Most of modern societies are increasingly characterized as multilingual. Linguists underline that modern linguistics has moved towards trilingualism and even multilingualism from bilingualism. This situation raises new questions about strategies for language teaching of bilingual and trilingual children. The most effective methods of language training for multilinguals nowadays match with methods for bilinguals that are presented predominantly by communicative approach, transcultural learning, methods of active listening, and those for overcoming lexico-semantic interference. The extent and the content of input in bilingual and trilingual development also significantly influence the positive effect of bilingual and multilingual education.