Is It Advisable to Leave Our Kids Receive No English Subject until Later?
The topic of age has been investigated profusely in first (L1) and second language (L2) acquisition, but clear or simple answers to vital questions about relationship between age and L1 and L2 learning have not been easy to produce. The evidence for a critical or sensitive period for L1 acquisition in human is strong, yet it remains far less well understood as the critical period for the development of human brain (Ortega, 2009).
In our society, it is generally believed that children enjoy an advantage over adults in learning languages. Parents who are aware of this assumption will preferably get their kids exposed to foreign languages as soon as possible. This tendency was firstly closely looked by Eric Lenneberg (1967). He conducted a study and concluded that there is a critical period in language learning due to human brain’s plasticity: as the brain is getting mature, its plasticity will also decline. He further explained that humans’ brain will be matured at the age of twelve, which generally is the starting age of puberty. After the puberty, acquiring first language will be challenging if not difficult.
Since Lennerberg’s writing, behavioral studies approximating a direct test of the critical period hypothesis for first language acquisition have become more widely available. One of the studies is a study to Genie, a girl who was deprived of language and social interaction until her discovery at the age of thirteen (Curtiss, 1977 in Johnson & Newport, 1989). When found, she spoke like a two-year old. She got rehabilitation and intensive exposure of language and after seven years of treatment she learned new words but her syntax and phonology was like that of a two year old. The other similar studies are the cases of Isabelle and Chelsea. Isabelle was found in Ohio at the age of six. She was a daughter of a deaf-mute. She made only croaking sounds. Once she was found and linguistic exposure began to be given, she made significant progress in language development. At the age of eight, she was indistinguishable from a child at her age. Meanwhile, Chelsea, who was discovered at the age of thirty, and began to acquire language in her adulthood, still had no structure at all after treatment. These evidences support the existence of critical period in the acquisition of first language. Adolescents could not learn the mother tongue to the level of their peers, even after they were rescued and efforts were made to teach them language (Ortega, 2009). Considering these study results, researchers interpreted cautiously but suggestively that there is an indication of critical period existence for L1 acquisition (Ortega, 2009). Therefore, acquiring first language after puberty may hardly lead to ultimate attainment.
Noticing the possibility of critical period existence in the first language acquisition, many researchers are questioning the applicability of this hypothesis to L2 acquisition. If so, it should be the case that young children are better second language learners than adults and should consequently reach higher levels of final proficiency in the second language (Johnson & Newport, 1989).
A number of studies have been conducted to answer the above question. Not surprisingly, these studies appear to contradict one another. Some have been said to demonstrate a child advantage, and some an adult advantage. The former conclusion is in accord to maturational hypothesis. This hypothesis claims that there is something special about the maturational state of the child’s brain that makes children particularly adept at acquiring any language, first as well as second. According to this hypothesis, children will be better in language learning. It may be true that adults initially out-perform children in their rate of L2 acquisition; however, children do better than adults in ultimate attainment (Ioup, et. al., 1994). Adults perhaps seem to begin moving toward second language proficiency more quickly, but this advantage appears to be short-lived (Johnson & Newport, 1989).
Meanwhile, there are other studies showing adult second language learners’ success to attain native-like proficiency. In this case exercise hypothesis exists. This hypothesis predicts that as long as children have acquired a first language during childhood, the ability to acquire language will remain complete and can be utilized at any age (Johnson & Newport, 1989). As a consequence, second language learning should be equivalent in children and adults or perhaps even superior in adults due to their greater skills in their first language.
Ioup, et. al. study in 1994 has profoundly supported the existence of exercise hypothesis. They examined an adult who has apparently acquired native proficiency in Egyptian Arabic in an untutored setting. This result allows for a reexamination of the critical period hypothesis and lead researchers to issue a challenge to find successful learners who would disclaim the critical period hypothesis. Anyhow, many researcher see Julie’s case in Ioup, et. al. (1994) as an example of exceptional learners. For adult exceptional learners, there is a role of talent or aptitude. Talent implies bilateral processing and high associative memory (Ioup, et. al., 1994).
To conclude, if there is a critical period for second language acquisition, it is because maturity has occurred in the brain. If there are exceptions to the critical period, this change does not happen in the usual way (Ioup, et. al., 1994). In other words, typically, child L2 learners outperform adult L2 learners in pursuing ultimate attainment. Yet, there are still exceptions for talented adults who can successfully achieve the native-likeness. Knowing these findings, will us, as parents, leave our kids receive no English or the other important foreign languages subject until their junior high school?
References
Ioup, G., Boustagoui, E., Tigi, M., & Moselle, M. (1994). Reexamining the Critical Period Hypothesis: A case of successful adult SLA in a naturalistic environment. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 16, 73-98.
Johnson, J. S.&Newport, E.L. (1989). Critical period effects in Second Language Learning: The influence of maturational state on the acquisition of English as a second language. Cognitive Psychology, 21(6), 60-99.
Ortega, L. (2009). Understanding Second Language Acquisition. London: Hodder Education and Hachette UK.
About the Author
Wahyu Kyestiati Sumarno is a USINTEC Dual Master’s Degree Program graduate at Semarang State University majoring in English Education and University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA majoring in Curriculum and Instructions. She is now a lecturer at Islamic University of Darul ‘Ulum Lamongan, East Java, Indonesia.
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