Dispelling Myths

Age and acquisition

Dispelling Myths

• Children repeat things over and over again. This is what we must also do.
• Language learning is imitation. You must be a mimic.
• First, we practice the separate sounds, then words, then sentences. Natural order = good for language learning.
• First listening then speaking = right order in language

learning.

• First listening and speaking reading and writing.
• When small, we do not translate.
• Children do not use grammar so it is not necessary.

Types of comparison and contrast

C1		A1
C2		A2

Child Adult
L 1L
2
(C1 – C2)
First and second language acquisition in children, holding age constant
(C2 – A2)
Second language acquisition in children and adults, holding second language constant
(C1 – C2)
First language acquisition in children and second language acquisition in adults.

The critical period hypothesis

Critical Period Hypothesis
Neurobiological considerations
Hemispheric considerations
Biological timetables
Right hemispheric participation
Anthropological evidence
The significance of accent
Cognitive considerations
Affective considerations
Linguistics considerations
Bilingualism
Interference between L1 and L2
Order of
acquisition

Neurobiological considerations

Lenneberg
(1967)
Lateralization

• Hemispheric lateralization

begins at

around 2 and is completed around puberty
Geschwind
(1970)
Lateralization
Is completed much earlier
Krashen
(1973)
Lateralization
Is completed at 5 years old
Scovel
(1984)
Lateralization
emerges at birth is evident at 5
is completed at around puberty

Neurobiological considerations

• Biological Timetables

Scovel (1988)
Sociobiological critical period
birds mammals
human beings?
Socially bonding accent
(1) To form an identity with their own community as they anticipate roles of parenting and leadership
(2) To attract mates of “their own kind” in an instinctive drive to maintain their own specie.
Not communicative fluency
Not other “higher-order” processes

Neurobiological considerations

• Right-Hemispheric Participation

There is a significant right hemispheric participation particularly in early stages of language learning
Obler (1981)
L2 learners, particularly adults, might benefit from more encouragement of right-brain activity in classroom context.

Neurobiological considerations

• Anthropological evidence

Sorenson (1967)
Tukano culture (South America)
12 languages
1 community => 1 language
1 person
is exposed to 2 or 3 languages
1 person
L1
is exposed to 2 or 3 languages
L1
“The Language acquisition seen in adult
language learners in the largely monolingual American middle class
speech communities may have been inappropiately taken to be universal…” (Hill, 1970)

The significance of accent

“foreign accent”
Speech muscles
gradually develop control complex sounds
are sometimes not
achieved until 5
Complete phonemic control before puberty
“Most of the evidence indicates that persons beyond the age of puberty do not acquire what has come to be called authentic pronunciation”. (Brown, 2007)
Of course… there are exceptions

• Neuromuscular plasticity
• Cerebral development
• Sociobiological programs
• Environment of sociocultural influences

The significance of accent

We all know people who have less than perfect pronunciation but who also have excellent and fluent control of a second language, control that can even exceed that of many native speakers
Arnold Schwarzenegger effect