Old Dogs and New Tricks: What About a Second Language?

Foreign language classes are often put off until high school due to the fact that this is when people believe students are most ready to learn another language. This belief is widely accepted despite the fact children are able to learn to speak like natives in foreign languages, whereas teenagers and adults usually are not able to learn how to do this. Speaking “like a native” entails being able to think in a foreign language without having to translate (Nadia 1). The ability to speak like a native in a foreign language can be easier to obtain when taught the foreign language during elementary school. Once a student passes the prime learning stages, learning a foreign language can be extremely difficult. Adults starting to learn a language have to work through an established first-language

Judie Haynes’ article, “Stages of Second Language Acquisition”, clearly states five stages that a new learner of English may go through. In Haynes’ theory, there are five stages in total, and they are pre-production, early production, speech emergence, intermediate fluency, and advanced fluency. According to Haynes, new learners of English acquire language by going through the same stages. However, how much time each student spends at a particular stage may be different. Despite the different time length, the stages of people acquiring new language are worth discussing.

Nativist McLaughlin (1984) claims that children whose ages are from two to six, can develop their language competences naturally, so at the time they start their formal education process, they have already mastered them. The author states that during these ages, children are so curious that they start creating and experimenting with language. She also affirms that second language acquisition takes place when children's listening and speaking skills have been well established in their mother tongue before being exposed to a second one.

Researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) report that “the language areas of the brain seem to go through the most dynamic period of growth between the ages of 6 and 13” (qtd. in Talukder 3). The UCLA study instead suggests that “the elementary and middle school years are the biologically most advantageous times for acquisition of a second language” (qtd. in Talukder 3). It is during the first years of life that “the foundations for thinking, language, vision, attitudes, aptitudes, and other characteristics are laid down," says Ronald Kotulak, author of Inside the Brain (qtd. in Dryden and Voss 266). Studies of the brain show that a second language is stored in the same part of the brain as a first language when learned by age 8. After that age, a second language is stored in a different part of the brain.

On the other hand, linguist Eric Lenneberg explains that similar to other human behaviors, one’s ability to learn and understand language relies on critical periods. A critical period is a limited span of time during which a person is capable of acquiring certain skills from external resources. Lenneberg states that a person’s main acquisition period for language lasts until the age of 12. He believes that after one goes through puberty, the brain becomes fixed and it is more difficult to completely learn a language. This is a hotly disputed theory as it has been proven that “the brain can

When discussing about “In other words”, Bialystok and Hakuta state that there is some thought that children who may appear to be learning a second languge very quickly at a vey young age (before the age of 5). They further state that accompanied by the loss of their first language, have really replaced the first language with the second language.

There are many distinctions between the processes of learning and acquisition. For instance, the terms are generally used to separate first language acquisition from second language learning, and implied within this distinction is the gap between children of 0-5 years learning their mother tongue, and those beyond puberty who may begin at this stage to learn a second language, or more. The process is a conscious one in learning whereas it is subconscious in acquisition and in language acquisition the focus is on communication or reception of a message as opposed to syntax and grammar as is the case in language learning. Moreover, the context is usually crucial and meaningful in language acquisition, but need not be important to the same extent in language learning. Motivation, too, is a factor that may broaden the gulf between learning and acquisition, but need not be factor that may broaden the gulf between learning and acquisition, as for the latter the

The critical period hypothesis (CPH), also known as the critical age hypothesis, was theorised to explain the observation that children seem to be able to learn and acquire language faster compared to adult older learners who have a harder time acquiring language. The critical period hypothesis (CPH) was proposed first by neurologists Wilder Penfield and Lamar Robert in 1959 and popularised by Eric Lenneberg in 1967. Another well-known person that supports this hypothesis is linguist Noam Chomsky. Chomsky declared that “we acquire knowledge not just because we are taught it but because we are born with the principles of language, they are in our genes. We have language because of nature, not just nurture.” Lenneberg (1967) proposed a biological explanation for language acquisition. He suggested that language is a function of brain maturation and develops from exposure to a linguistic environment or appropriate stimulation but only during a critical period. If a child is not able to acquire a language between the

Language is the window to the world. A child’s language seems to come naturally faster and easier than adults. Without explicit effort of learning, children could master their mother tongue, even more languages other than the mother tongue at once. For late learners or adults, however, it appears that they have more difficulty picking up another language at native or near native proficiency. Such phenomenon forms the basis of the Critical Period Hypothesis (CPH). In some countries, the Critical Period Hypothesis is even used in the debates of education policy on when and how the second language, often English, should be introduced to immigrants to maximize the learning outcome. This essay would first look into the Critical Period Hypothesis in the context of second language acquisition. It would then compare the arguments for and against the Critical Period Hypothesis and explore various issues arise from both side of the argument.

It is a common belief that children are better at learning languages than adults. Children have better mental flexibility, more creativity, a different way of thinking, as well as improved memory skills. Children have the ability to achieve full knowledge of a second language, along with any additional ones. This idea is the premise of the Critical Period Hypothesis. This theory was proposed by Wilder Penfield and Lamar Roberts, but later popularized by Eric Lenneberg. Eric Lenneberg (1976), considered to be the “father” of the critical period hypothesis, believed that children only have a certain amount of time to pick up a language. “The critical period hypothesis (CPH) as proposed by Lenneberg (1967) holds that primary language acquisition

What is a critical period? It is a period in which a certain skill is believed to be most easily acquired, but is there one for the acquisition of language? The case study, “The Linguistic Development of Genie” (Curtiss, et al 1974) and paper “Maturational Constraints on Language Learning”(Newport, 1990) implicates that the theory of the critical period can apply for acquisition of language. The case study of Genie demonstrates an unfortunate but unique in which the hypothesized critical period for language acquisition was missed. It was hypothesized that Genie would not be able to acquire language at the age of 13 having grown past the critical period for language acquisition. The knowledge of Genie’s linguistic input is not known, it is only known that her father was intolerant of any noise made by her. This case studies Genie and how she progresses in terms of linguistic development. In the case of maturational constraints on language development, American Sign Language (ASL) users were used to study maturational constraints to explain the acquisition of language. The paper argues that the age of first exposure is vital to the development of language. The experiments test American Sign Language users with varying ages of first exposure but with equal amounts of experience, specifically 30 or more years of experience. The tests dealt with basic word order, the agreement between subject, object, and verb, use of verbal

Age has often been considered a major, if not the primary, factor determining success in learning a second or foreign language. Children are generally considered capable of acquiring a new language rapidly and with little effort, whereas adults are believed to be doomed to failure. (9)

Acquisition of a second language is one of the most remarkable aspects of the development of human knowledge and way of communication. It is an unusual phenomenon that has caught the attention of many researchers especially in the field of learning and linguistics for generations to come. The first language acquisition and the acquisition of a second language have been treated in most cases as two distinct analogies thus forming contrivances because of their differences regarding environment and age. Brown (2000), while differentiating between attainment of first language and the acquirement of a second or new language contends that the first emanates from unconscious, and naturalistic use of language and in many instances lead to a person becoming fluent in conversation, while the second language acquisition symbolizes the cognizant understanding of

Abstract: In second language acquisition, age factors has always been the study focus and one of the most controversial issues of linguistics. Based on the Brain Plasticity Theory and the Critical Period Hypothesis, the purpose is to prove such a hypothesis that the younger the leaner who begins to learn an second language,the greater the probability that he or she will achieve a native-like command of it.

The purpose of this paper is to review the literature which examines whether there is a critical period in foreign/second language acquisition and in pronunciation for late learners. The Critical Period Hypothesis refers to the claim that there is an optimal period for language acquisition which ends around puberty (Lenneberg, 1967). Generally,