It is a text for people who are not specialists or familiar to the topic. The author makes a summary of theories such as the ones described by Jean Grosjean.
The main topics presented in the text are Balanced Bilingualism, Semilingualism and Multilingualism.
According to the author a balanced bilingual is “a person who possesses age-appropriate competence in two languages…that person would be as competent as a native speaker of the same age in both languages”.
The author explains that children who are bilinguals may have more cognitive advantages in relation to others, for instance they dominate languages and use them according to the context.
The author exposes a controversial issue to be discussed later through the questions:
Can a person be called a balanced bilingual if he has abilities in two languages but only use one in most contexts? What if both languages are used though for different purposes, in different contexts?
In order to answer those questions the author provides a list of social, historical and psychological aspects, which are only important to the reader as a first reading about the topic .
