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3. Age and Acquisition

1) Types of comparison and contrast

L1

L2

① (C1-C2) First and second language acquisition in children, holding age constant

② (C2-A2)

: Second language acquisition in children and adults, holding second language constant

: What type of comparison is the most fruitful in yielding analogies for adult second languqge classroom instruction?

: What will be the central focus in this chapter?

③ (C1-A2)

: First language acquisition in children and second language acquisition on adults

: What type is one of the traditional comparisons, which needs extreme caution (diff btw child & adults)?

2) The Critical Period Hypothesis

3) Neurological Considerations

3-1) Hemispheric Lateralization

: intellectual, logical, and analytic functions appear to be largely located in the left hemisphere, while the right hemisphere controls functions related to emotional and social needs

: enough data have accumulated to challenge the simple view that the left hemisphere is the language hemisphere and the right hemisphere does something else

: a more crucial question for second language researchers on when lateralization takes place, and whether or not that lateralization process affects language acquisition

: Eric Lenneberg (1987) and others-lateralization is a slow process that begins around the age of two and is completed around puberty

* Time of lateralization

- Lenneberg: complete around puberty

- Norman Geschwind(1970): much earlier age

- Stephen Krashen (1973): around age five

: one must be careful to distinguish between ‘emergence’ of lateralization (at birth, but quite evident at five) and ‘completion’ (only evident at about puberty)

3-2) Biological Timetables

: Scovel, ‘sociobiological critical period’ -> toward the development of a socially bonding accent at puberty

: an accent emerging after puberty is the price we pay for our preordained ability to be articulate apes

3-3) Right-Hemispheric Participation

: there is significant right hemisphere participation and that ‘this participation is particularly active during the early stages of learning the second language’

: Genesee (1982), second language learners, particularly adult learners, might benefit from more encouragement of right-brain activity in the classroom context

3-4) Anthropological Evidence

: Sorenson, during adolescence, individuals actively and almost suddenly began to speak two or three other languages to which they had been exposed at some point

: 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

4. The Significance of Accent

: research on the acquisition of authentic control of phonology of a foreign language supports the notion of a critical period

: it is clear that the chances of any one individual commencing a second language after puberty and achieving a scientifically verifiable authentic native accent are infinitesimal

: upon reviewing the research on age and accent acquisition, as Scovel (1999) did, we are left with powerful evidence of a critical period for accent, but for accent only!

* Arnold Schwarzeneggar Effect, whose accent is clearly noticeable yet who is arguably as linguistically proficient as any native speaker of American English.

5. Cognitive Considerations

:Human cognition develops rapidly throughout the first 16 years of life and less rapidly thereafter.

① Jean Piaget, outlined the course of intellectual development in a child

-sensorimotor stage (birth to 2)

-preoperational stage (ages 2 to 7)

-operational stage (ages 7 to 16)

-concrete operational stage (ages 7 to 11)

-formal operational stage (ages 11 세 16)

* Ausubel (1964), adults learning a second language could profit from certain grammatical explanations and deductive thinking that obviously would be pointless for a child

* lateralization, as the child matures into adulthood, some would maintain, the left hemisphere (which controls the analytical and intellectual functions) becomes more dominant than the right hemisphere (which controls the emotional functions)

② Equilibration

: progressive interior organization of knowledge in stepwise fashion, and is related to the concept of equilibrium

: cognition develops as a process of moving from stages of doubt and uncertainty (disequilibrium) to stages of resolution and certainty (equilibrium) and then back to further doubt

: periods of disequilibrium mark virtually all cognitive development up through age 14 or 15, when formal operations finally are firmly organized and equilibrium is reached

③ rote and meaningful learning

: foreign language classroom should not become the locus of excessive rote activity-rote drills, pattern practice without context, rule recitation, and other activities that are not in the context of meaningful communication

6. Affective Consideration

: empathy, self-esteem, extroversion, inhibition, imitation, anxiety, attitudes

: very young children are highly egocentric

: in preadolescence children develop an acute consciousness of themselves as separate and identifiable entities but ones which, in their still-wavering insecurity, need protecting -> they therefore develop inhibitions about this self-identity, fearing to expose too mush self-doubt

: at puberty these inhibitions are heightened in the trauma of undergoing critical physical, cognitive, and emotional changes

: adolescents must acquire a totally new physical, cognitive, and emotional identity -> their egos are affected not only in how they understand themselves but also in how they use the communicative process to bring on affective equilibrium

* Language ego

: account for the identity a person develops in reference to the language he or she speaks

: language ego may account for the difficulties that adults have in learning a second language

: the child’s ego is dynamic and growing and flexible through the age of puberty -> a new language at this stage does not pose a substantial ‘threat’ of inhibition to the ego

: language ego becomes protective and defensive (the younger, the less protective and defensive : 어릴 때 시작하는 것이 좋다)

: making the leap to a new or second identity can be successful only when one musters the necessary ego strength to overcome inhibitions

: successful adult language learner is someone who can bridge this affective gap

: master adults manifest a number of inhibitions

* Peer pressure

: children, they had better ‘be like the rest of the kids’

: adults tend to tolerate linguistic differences more than children (the younger, the stronger peer pressure) and therefore errors in speech are more easily excused

7. Linguistic Consideration

: Bilingualism

- code­switching (the act of inserting words, phrases, or even longer stretches of one language into the other) ex. Don't 잔소리

- considerable cognitive benefit of early childhood bilingualism

: Interference btw first and second languages

- transfer (positive / negative (overgeneralization(L1-L1. L2-L2), interference(L1-L2, L2-L1))

- linguistic and cognitive processes of second language learning in young children are in

general similar to first language processes

*age-and-acquisition-inspired teaching method

: total physical response, the natural approach

: "learners would benefit from delaying production until speech "emerge," that learners should be as relaxed as possible in the classroom..."