Teachers' language: L1 attrition in Russian-English bilinguals

The present study reports on the evidence of first language (LI) attrition in a population that may appear to be the most resistant to Ll changes. Russian monolinguals (n = 3) and RussianEnglish bilinguals (n = 10) participated in the study. The bilinguals were graduate students teaching Russian as a foreign language at a U.S. university The data were obtained through semispontaneous discourse on assigned interview topics and a grammaticality judgment task. Numerous instances of lexical and grammatical deviations registered in the data suggest that an extensive exposure to the Ll in the second language (L2) environment and motivation to keep it intact due to a high professional demand may still diminish the speaker's control over his or her Ll skills. Implications for L2 acquisition and foreign language teaching (FLT) are offered in