As in most parts of the world, English is the main foreign language learned in
Macedonia. The situation differs from other, maybe better known contexts, however, in
that Albanian learners of English in Macedonia are normally bilingual to start with.
The goal of this study is to investigate language use among bilingual Albanian learners of
English with a view to finding out what role English plays in their lives, how they learn
the English language, and what their language behavior is when learning the third
language.
This kind of study draws on both socio- and psycholinguistic theory and my attention
was particularly concentrated on transfer phenomena at the lexical level. It can be said
that the focus on lexical influence of the first and the second language upon English
characterizes this study, among similar studies in the field of third language acquisition.
The data were collected in classroom environments in the form of conversation and
written texts from students, language background questionnaires and proficiency tests,
classroom recordings, and interviews conducted with the English teachers. The results of
the language background questionnaires and proficiency tests indicated that the students
could be divided into two experimental groups, one constituted by 48 students with Low
Bilingual proficiency and one comprising 67 students with High Bilingual proficiency,
all at A2 on the Common European Frame of Reference, describing a pre-intermediate
level of English.
The most notable relationship observed in this study was the effect of bilingualism on
third language production. This finding answered the main research questions,
demonstrating that proficiency and language typology affect L3 acquisition and
production. Although not quantitatively significant, the trend found in this analysis does
suggest the possibility of a beneficial effect that proficiency, the similarity between
language typologies, attitude as well as motivation might have on L3 learning. These
conclusions support the majority of current research in the field of L3 acquisition.