The Sooner The Better for Childhood Foreign Language 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.

Pros for “the sooner the better for childhood foreign language learning”

Reason

Explanation

1. existence of a critical period for the learning of a foreign language

1. In 1967, Eric Lenneberg proposed the hypothesis of a critical period for language learning. Such critical period refers to the period from the age of two to puberty.

2. Scholars believed that the brain undergoes lateralization starting from the age of two. Prior to the completion of the lateralization, people are using the whole brain to learn language. Around puberty, lateralization of the brain will be completed. Since then, language learning is mainly taken care of by the left side of the brain.

The effectiveness of language learning after lateralization of the human brain is not as good as during the whole-brain learning period. The loss of brain plasticity causes negative effect on language learning. Therefore, language learning is best before completion of brain lateralization
(Lenneberg, 1967;Penfield andRoberts, 1959).

2. better result obtained for language
acquisition

1. Young children have more flexible oral muscles, better memory, strong mimicking ability, better phonetic ability, and less interference from mother tongue. Therefore, learning a foreign language early can result in more precise pronunciation.

2. The peak of brain development is before the age of three. The brain capacity of a one-year-old kid is twice that at birth; also the rate of growth of the brain is a thousand times faster than that of a 15-yr-old adolescent. This phenomenon is related to the environmental stimulus.

The young children are far more sensitive towards speech recognition as compared to the adults. When the brain at an early age receives a large amount of stimulation and input in English, it will gradually strengthen and become a long-term memory. If learning occurs after the critical period, it would be difficult to acquire the native accent because of decline of speech recognition ability.

3. Some research proved that there exists a “critical period for accent”. That means to say that after a certain age (about 6 years old), when children learn a second language, a non-native accent may appear.

In another research, it was found that the ability to distinguish accent and pronunciation started to decline after the age of six. The group consisting of children below 6 years old showed that 68% of the children spoke with nearly the accent of native speakers; while the group with children more than 13 years old only showed 7%.
(Asher and Garcia, 1969; Flege et al., 1999; Larsen-Freeman & Long, 1991; McLaughlin, 1984; Oyama, 1976;Scovel, 1999; Tahta, Wood & Lowenthal, 1981a, 1981b; Weber-Fox & Neville, 2001).

3. less
interference

1. Young children learning foreign language do not have external academic pressure; and unlike adults, they don’t have the mentality of self-defense. The “affective filter hypothesis”is less influential on childhood foreign language learning.

2. In 1985, Krashen proposed the “affective filter hypothesis”. He believed that the learning attitude directly affects the outcome of learning a second language. Having to face a totally new environment for learning a language causes an enormous amount of pressure and the defensive emotion will affect the learning input.

If the learner has positive motivation and sufficient self-confidence, then the result will be better. Students with good learning attitude are less influenced by the phenomenon of “affective filter”; thus assimilation of the language is better.

3. Children have the learning advantage because of lesser
emotional interference. During puberty, the
phenomenon of “affective filter” becomes more influential and causes negative effect on language learning.

References

Asher, J., Garcia, R. (1969). The optimal age to learn a foreign accent. The Modern Language Journal, 53, 3–17.

Flege, J.E., Yeni-Komshian, G.H., & Liu, S. (1999). Age constraints on second-language acquisition. Journal of Memory and Language, 41, 78–104.

Larsen-Freeman, D., & Long, M. (1991). An introduction to second language acquisition research. London: Longman.

Lenneberg, E.H. (1967). The Biological foundations of language. New York: John Wiley & Sons.

McLaughlin, B. (1984). Second language acquisition in childhood. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Oyama, S. (1976). A sensitive period for the acquisition of a nonnative phonological system. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 5, 261–283.

Penfield, W., & Roberts, L. (1959). Speech and brain mechanisms. New York: Atheneum.

Scovel, T. (1969). Foreign accents, language acquisition, and cerebral dominance. Language Learning, 19, 245–254.

Tahta, S., Wood, M., & Lowenthal, K. (1981a). Foreign accents: Factors relating to transfer of accent from the first language to a second language. Language and Speech, 24, 265–272.

Tahta, S., Wood, M., & Lowenthal, K. (1981b). Age changes in the ability to replicate foreign pronunciation and intonation. Language and Speech, 24, 363–372.

Weber-Fox, C. & Neville, H.J. (2001). Sensitive periods differentiate processing of open and closed class words: An ERP study in bilinguals. Journal of Speech, Language and Hearing Research, 44, 1338–1353.

Originally published at http://poeticmindfulness.wordpress.com on September 3, 2020.