Learning a third language: what learner strategies do bilingual students bring? MICHAEL GRENFELL and VEE HARRIS This article seeks to develop the research agenda of multilingualism and multicompetence by bringing together three research fields and their related methodologies: bilingualism, third language acquisition and language learner strategies. After a brief introduction to each area, it describes a study to explore whether bilingual adolescent students learning French in two London schools outperform their monolingual peers in reading and listen- ing comprehension. The significant difference in bilinguals students’ listening compre- hension test scores leads to in-depth analysis of qualitative data of three case study students in order to identify the differential features involved in the interaction of the lan- guages. It appears that their greater use of oral/aural strategies is developed through the home environment; code-switching in the parental input fostering the development of the strategies. The article concludes with implications for pedagogy and for research. Keywords: learner strategies; bilingualism; trilingualism; modern languages Introduction Over half of the world’s population use two languages on a daily basis (see Grosjean, 1999). In the UK, it is estimated that 26% of the students in maintained primary schools and 22% in secondary schools belong to a minority ethnic group (Department for Education, 2011a). Many of these students could be described as ‘bilingual’ if the definition encompasses operating on a day-to-day basis at home or in the community in two languages. Long-term academic benefits of bilingualism have been demonstrated in the USA (Thomas & Collier, 2002), Canada (Swain, 1998) and elsewhere. Hence Genesee, Lindholm-Leary, Saunders, and Christian (2006) and August and Shanahan (2006) are amongst many who present strong arguments for bilingual education to support the Michael Grenfell, The Southampton School of Education, University of Southampton, Highfield, Southampton, SO17 1BJ, UK; e-mail: Grenfell@soton.ac.uk. He is a visiting professor at University of Southampton, England and Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland where he was the 1904 chair of Education and head of School. His background is in French Studies and he has a long research association in areas including education, lan- guage, and linguistics and cultural studies. He has some 16 authored books to his names as well as numerous journal articles dealing with second language acquisition, education, and the work of the French social theorist Pierre Bourdieu. Vee Harris, Department of Education, Goldsmiths College, University of London, New Cross, London, SE14 6NW, UK. She was a senior lecturer in Modern Languages in Education at Goldsmiths, University of London. She has published books and articles, mainly on language learner strategies, based on projects carried out in the classroom in collaboration with the teachers. Although she is now semi-retired, she continues to take an active interest in the acquisition of languages. © 2015 Taylor & Francis J. CURRICULUM STUDIES, 2015 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00220272.2015.1033465