Individual Differences in Second Language Acquisition
Early second language acquisition provides children with multifaceted benefits. For example, it supports brain development, cognitive skills, academic achievement, cultural awareness, and empathy. However, each child experiences the second language acquisition process uniquely, especially during early developmental years. This uniqueness is due to child-internal factors (e.g., age and cognitive capacity) and child-external factors (e.g., quantity and quality of language input and learning context). Below, we will examine the internal and external factors that play a role in second language acquisition.
Internal factors refer to the children’s characteristics, such as age and cognitive capacity, including verbal memory and analytical reasoning skills. It is well known that early bilinguals who begin second language acquisition during childhood or even infancy achieve better outcomes in second language development compared to those who start later.
Although children’s cognitive capacity expands with age, cognitive capacities vary across children. This variation diversifies the paths to acquiring a second language. For example, verbal memory, the ability to recall verbal information, and analytical reasoning, the ability to identify patterns among numerous pieces of information, help children learn new words in the second language. In other words, children who can better retain verbal information, recall it when needed, and establish links between different information can learn words earlier and thus achieve a richer vocabulary. Moreover, these cognitive skills contribute to children using diverse sentence structures during storytelling in the second language.
External factors, also known as environmental factors such as the quantity and quality of second language input, the context in which the language is learned, and the social interactions conducted in the second language. We know that the context of second language acquisition can vary. Some children learn a second language at school, while others do so at home. Thus, how long and what children talk and hear in their second language differ. Longer and more diverse second language exposure in a day enriches children’s vocabulary and narratives and supports learning grammatical rules, and complex sentence use.
So, how does social interaction play a role in second language acquisition: in what context, with whom, or with what tools? Children become more competent in their second language if they can practice it with their peers or older siblings. Particularly, storybooks, media tools, or games in the target language cultivate communication among peers, thereby supporting language acquisition through various channels.
The nature of child development dictates inevitable individual differences. The internal and external sources of differences affect second language acquisition in an interactive way. A holistic view of second language acquisition can help educators and specialists determine the content, structure, or duration of second language education. In light of this view, parents increase and diversify the children’s exposure to a second language at home according to their needs. Thus, the nuanced understanding of individual differences builds an optimal context with proper educational tools, supporting children’s second language acquisition processes.
References:
Blom, E., Paradis, J., & Duncan, T. S. (2012). Effects of input properties, vocabulary size, and L1 on the development of third person singular –s in child L2 English. Language Learning, 62(3), 965–994. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9922.2012.00715.x
Jia, G., & Aaronson, D. (2003). A longitudinal study of Chinese children and adolescents learning English in the United States. Applied Psycholinguistics, 24(1), 131–161. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0142716403000079
Paradis, J. (2011). Individual differences in child English second language acquisition. Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism, 1(3), 213–237. https://doi.org/10.1075/lab.1.3.01par
Paradis, J. (2019). English second language acquisition from early childhood to adulthood: The role of age, first Language, cognitive, and input factors. Proceedings of the BUCLD, 43, 11–26.
Prevoo, M. J. L., Malda, M., Mesman, J., Emmen, R. a. G., Yeniad, N., Van Ijzendoorn, M. H., & Linting, M. (2013). Predicting ethnic minority children’s vocabulary from socioeconomic status, maternal language and home reading input: different pathways for host and ethnic language. Journal of Child Language, 41(5), 963–984. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0305000913000299
