Enhancing bilingual resources in third language acquisition: towards pedagogical translanguaging

Abstract Third language acquisition in educational contexts is nowadays expanding in monolingual and multilingual contexts. One reason is the mobility of the population that results in an increasing number of home languages that are different from the school languages. Another reason is the spread of the teaching of English as a third language in multilingual school contexts where two other languages are also taught. Third language acquisition is a complex phenomenon that shares many characteristics with second language acquisition but also has some specific differences related to the effect of bilingualism on third language acquisition, multilingual learners’ repertoires and the specific role of metalinguistic awareness in language learning. The aim of this paper is threefold: 1) to look at the potential advantages of bilingualism on L3 considering the great diversity of situations in which an L3 is learned in school contexts; 2) to look at the similarities and differences between second and third language acquisition and 3) to discuss how pedagogical translanguaging can enhance bilingual resources so that L3 learners can develop an optimal use of their resources.