PLLT Chapter.3 summary

Summary – CHAPTER3. Age and Acquisition


We can observe that children acquire their first language well, but individual learning a second language have a difficulty. Therefore, we should learn from the first language.

Dispelling Myths
The first step in investigating age and acquisition might be to dispel some myths about the relationship between first and second language acquisition. Here are some common arguments.
1. When a child learn his first language, he repeats things over and over again. This is what we should learn in a language acquisition.
2. Language learning is a matter of imitation. You must be a mimic.
3. The natural order is the separate sounds, then words, and then sentences.
4. we must speak after listening like children.
5. the natural order of 4skills is listening, speaking, reading and writing.
6. you should learn a foreign language without translation.
7. Grammar is unnecessary.

These are related to a behavioristic theory in which the first language acquisition process are viewed as consisting of rote practice, habit formation, shaping, overlearning, reinforcement conditioning, association, stimulus and response.
Ausubel gave a warning by representing the problems related to audiolingual method.
1. the rote learning practice of audiolingual drills lacked the meaningfulness necessary for successful first and second language acquisition.
2. Adults learning a foreign language could benefit from deductive presentations of grammar.
3. the native language of the learner is not just interfering factor. It can facilitate learning a second language.
4. The written form of the language could be beneficial.
5. Students could be overwhelmed by language spoken at its natural speed, and they, like children, could benefit from more deliberative speech from the teacher.

Types of Comparison and Contrast
We can compare three possible cases.
1. first and second language acquisition in children, holding age constant
2. Second language acquisition in children and adults, holding second language constant
3. first language acquisition in children and second language acquisition in adults.
In the comparison number2 above, one is holding language constant and manipulating the differences between children and adults. Such comparisons are, for obvious reasons, the most fruitful in yielding analogies for adult second language classroom instruction.

The Critical Period Hypothesis
The critical period is a biologically determined period of life when language can be acquired more easily and beyond which time language is increasingly difficult to acquire.
The “classic” argument is that a critical point for second language acquisition occurs around the age of 12 or 13, and after that time, language acquisition cannot be achieved easily.

Neurological Considerations
One of the most promising areas of inquiry in age and acquisition research has been the study of the function of the brain in the process of acquisition

1)Hemispheric Lateralization
Language functions seem to be controlled mainly in the left hemisphere. When lateralization takes place and how that lateralization process affects language acquisition are important question. Thomas Scovel suggested that the plasticity of the brain prior to puberty enables children to acquire not only a first language but also a second language and that possibly it is the very accomplishment of lateralization that makes it difficult for people to be able ever again to easily acquire fluent control of a second language.

2)Biological Timetables
It is related to accent. Scovel cited evidence for a sociobiological critical period in various species of mammals and birds. Walsh and driller concluded that different aspects of a second language are learned optimally at different ages: Lower-order processes such as pronunciation makes foreign accents difficult to over come after childhood. Higher order language functions, such as semantic relations, may explain why college students can learn many times the amount of grammar and vocabulary that elementary school students can learn in a given period time.

3) Right-Hemispheric Participation
Obler noted that the significant right hemisphere participation is particularly active during the early stages of learning the second language. Others found support for right hemisphere involvement in the form of complex language processing as opposed to early language acquisition. Geneses concluded that “there may be greater right hemisphere involvement in language processing in bilinguals who acquire their second language later and who learn it in informal context.”

4) Anthropological Evidence
One unique example of second language acquisition in adulthood was reported by Sorenson. He mentioned that In adulthood, a person may acquire more language ; as he approaches old age, field observation indicates, he will go on to perfect his knowledge of all the languages at his disposal.

The Significance of Accent
We can appreciate that a tremendous degree of muscular control is required to achieve the fluency of a native speaker of a language. Most of the evidence indicates that persons beyond the age of puberty do not acquire authentic pronunciation of the second language. Many people consider adult learners to be poorer than children learners because of the pronunciation or accent. However, we should focus on the “multi-competence”.

Cognitive Considerations
Piaget outlined the courses of intellectual development in a child through various stage. The critical stage for a consideration of the effects of age on the second language acquisition appears to occur at puberty(age 11). At this time, people can think something abstractly rather than directly. Children are generally not aware that they are acquiring a language. Soma people think this kind of unawareness is good for a second language acquisition. But it’s not true. Even if some adults were aware of their acquiring a language very well, they were very successful in language acquisition. Piagetian notion of equilibration should be considered in examining cognitive domain. Disequilibrium may provide significant motivation for language acquisition Language interacts with cognition to achieve equilibrium. The final one to consider is the distinction between rote and meaningful learning. Ausubel said that people don’t have to do rote and mechanic learning. Rather, most items are acquired by meaningful learning.


Affective Considerations
Human beings are emotional. As intellectual as we would like to think we are, we are affected by our emotions. The affective domains include many factors : empathy, self-esteem, extroversion, inhibition, imitation, anxiety, attitudes and so on. The role of egocentricity in human development is very important. They develop inhibitions about self-identity. One’s self-identity is inextricably bound up with one’s language. Guiora suggested that the language ego may account for the difficulties that adults have in learning a second language. Another affectively related variable is attitude. Negative attitudes can affect success in learning a language. Peer pressure is a particularly important variable as well. Children are harsher critics of one another’action and words, which provides a necessary mutual pressure to learn a second language.



Linguistic Considerations

1) Bilingualism
Chilren learning two languages simultaneously acquire them by the use of similar strategies. They can distinguish separate contexts for the two languages. People who learn a second language in such separate contexts can be described as coordinate bilinguals, who have two meaning systems. Most bilinguals engage in code-switching.

2) Interference Between First and Second Language
Many concluded that similar strategies and linguistic features are present in both first and second language learning in children. The child’s acquisition doesn’t appear to show first language interference and, except for negation, showed similar strategies and rules for both the first and the second language.

3) Interference in Adults
Adult second language linguistic processes are more vulnerable to the effect of the first language on the second, especially the farther apart the two events are. That is, Adults, more cognitively secure, appear to operate from the solid foundation of the first language and thus manifest more interference.

4) order of Acquisition
Most researcher claimed that children learning a second language use a creative construction process, just as they do in their first language. This conclusion was supported by some massive research data collected on the acquisition order of eleven English morphemes in children learning English as a second language. More recently, in a “search for a unified theoretical account for the L1 and L2 morpheme orders,” reexamined the morpheme-order studies and concluded the generalizability of morpheme acquisition order.

We have touched on several significant perspectives on questions about age and acquisition. We are led to believe that children are better at learning foreign languages without fully considering all the evidence and without looking at all aspects of acquisition. However, in fact, adults have been shown to be superior learners on at least several planes such as vocabulary and literacy.

Issues in First Language Acquisition Revisited

1) Competence and Performance
It is difficult to achieve linguistic competence in a second language as well as in a first language. People should know the difference between performance in a given context and competence in a second language.

2) Comprehension and production
There is a universal distinction between comprehension and production. Learning a second language usually means learning to speak it and to comprehend it. Teaching involves attending to both comprehension and production and we should consider the differences between two.

3) Nature or Nurture?
Language properties may be more efficiently acquired in adults. If they have a problem, it’s not because of the absence of innate capacities.

4) Universals
Some people insisted that second language learners have only partially access to Universal Grammar or not at all. In contrast, Others insisted that people should not look at monolingualism as a standard of estimation.

5) Systematicity and Variability
Second Language acquisition is characterized by both systematicity and variability. The variability is exacerbated by a number of cognitive, affective, cultural, and contextual variables.

6) Language and thought
Language helps to shape thinking and that thinking helps to shape language.

7) Imitation
While children imitate meaning better, adults can imitate the surface structure better.

8) Practice
When people learn, the important thing is meaningfulness, not the frequency of stimuli and the number of times spent practicing a form. It’s crucial to do contextualized, appropriate and meaningful communication.

9) Input
Teachers should derive deliberate but meaningful communication with students and that input should foster meaningful communicative use of the language in appropriate contexts.

10) Discourse
When we study children’s amazing dexterity in acquiring rules of conversation and in perceiving intended meaning, we can easily find ways of teaching such capacities to second language learners.