The Value of Plurilingualism or What Factors Affect the Development of Plurilingual Competences

Summary It is hardly possible to find a person who has never been faced with a challenge of learning another language. If asked, some would share their from-miserable-to-jubilant experiences of language learning at school, others would disclose the nail-biting moments of despair when a career chance just slipped from their hands due to the lack of the required language competences, whereas many would question if there is the best age to start learning a new language and if it should necessarily be one’s childhood. Having considered such popular queries as above, the present article has come to a conclusion that the early initial age of learning another language, while undeniably adds to the success of gaining good communicative competences and generates plenty of other benefits, does not deprive a person of a possibility to master a language in a mature age. Learning a language in adulthood, nevertheless, is more sensitive to the motivational and methodological decisions, but the benefits reaped from active plurilingual practices in the elderly age prove to be highly valuable. From a methodological perspective, it is a conceptual article inspired by a conference discussion1 and drawn on empirical evidence from previous relevant inquiries, longitudinal studies and international research projects. As such, the article is an attempt to pass the relay baton to further studies into the factors that have an impact on the successful development of plurilingual competences and add to the overall value of plurilingualism.