This paper discusses bilingualism from the point of view of language universals, including Fillmore's case grammar, McCawley's "anywhere rules" for lexical insertions and Slobin's operating principles in first language acquisition. It is assumed that first and second language learning is essentially the same, regardless of age. Whereas the monolingual learner's strategies involve the observation of intralinguistic connections between semantic representation and surface structure, the bilingual's strategies have a second interlinguistic dimension. In order to display his total language processing capacities, the bilingual needs a bilingual learning situation. The Multilingual Project illustrates how this can be achieved in a multilingual classroom. The learning materials developed by the Project are subject matter-oriented and student-centered. The learner can progress at his own rate studying in the language or languages of his preference with the help of bilingual tests supported by activity materials. This approach is based on the hypothesis that allowing the bilingual to learn at his own intellectual level will best serve his conceptual and linguistic development. (Author)