Live and Learn ~~ Always a Right Time for Learning
Concerning the pros and cons of “the sooner the better for childhood foreign language learning”, I sorted the literature into the classification presented as follows.
Cons for “the sooner the better for childhood foreign language learning”
1. non-existence of a critical period for the learning of a foreign language
Research showed that young children learning foreign language did not have better result than the older children. Ervin-Tripp (1974) found that 9 yr-old children had better morphology and syntax capacity than 4 yr-olds. This is because the former had better ability in solving problems and the deductive ability than the latter. Snow and Hoefnagel-Hohler (1978) studied the situation of learning Dutch in Holland. They found that adolescents (12~15 yrs old) displayed fastest improvement, adult group (over 15 yrs old) was next, and the children (6~10 yrs old) learned the slowest.
2. the phonological competence is irrelevant to age
(1). Some scholars found that the difference in the phonological competence has no relation to age.
(2). Researchers pointed out that the higher-grade elementary students performed better than preschool children in the pronunciation if they receive two hours of practice every week (Locke & Snow, 1997).
3. the interference to the learning of mother tongue
Some studies found that for individuals born in a bilingual environment, the pace in language development is slow (McLaughlin, 1984).
References
Ervin-Tripp, S.M. (1974). Is second language learning like the first? TESOL Quarterly, 8, 111–125.
Locke, J.L. & Snow, C.E. (1997). Social influences on vocal learning in human and non-human primates. In Snowdon, C. & Hausberger, M. (eds.), Social influences on vocal development. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
McLaughlin, B. (1984). Second language acquisition in childhood. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Snow, C.E. & Hoefnagel-Hohle, M. (1978). The critical age for language acquisition: Evidence from second language learning. Child Development, 49, 1114–1128.
Originally published at http://poeticmindfulness.wordpress.com on September 4, 2020.
