An Introduction to Applied Linguistics

5 OPTIMUM AGE
First the age of starting a foreign language. What is the right age to start language
learning? This is a question often asked by administrators, politicians, parents, as
though there is one right answer. Is there – other things being equal? We can only
attempt an answer when we have asked some preliminary questions, such as what is
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the language learning for? Which students are to be involved? Is there one through
system or are there several (for example primary, secondary, tertiary)? If there are
several, do they interlock with one another? What method is envisaged, will it be
foreign language instruction, content based, immersion, and if immersion, which
version (see below)? Which language is being studied? Has the choice been made on
the basis of its prestige or its distance from the students’ home language, which may
determine how difficult they find it? What prospects do successful language learners
in this situation have of further study, use of the language(s), jobs and so on. What
possibilities exist for visits to the target language country? How is success measured?
Who are the teachers? Are they well trained, and how proficient are they in the target
language?
One approach to the optimum age question has been the appeal to the sensitive
age or critical period view: this view considers that developments in the brain at
puberty change the way in which we learn. Before puberty we acquire languages (one
or in a bilingual setting two or more) as native speakers. After puberty we learn in a
more intellectual manner as second- or foreign-language speakers. This idea, based
on the sensitive or critical period hypothesis, if true (and it has been difficult to
refute), would support a universal optimum age for starting a second or foreign
language, namely as early as possible, in order to allow for possible acquisition as a
native speaker. (See the discussion in Chapter 2 of research by Bialystok.)
An early start for second- and foreign-language learning at school is not unusual.
Foreign-language teaching in the elementary school in the USA, French in the UK
primary school, languages other than English in the Australian primary school: these
are well-known examples of the willingness among educational planners to (1)
extend the length of explicit language learning and (2) take advantage of the greater
plasticity of young children in automatising new skills and internalising new
knowledge. Such aims are plausible. Why then the doubts and the reversals of policy
such as the on–off programmes found in the UK? Why the doubt, among pro -
fessional language educators as much as among administrators, that spending longer
teaching a language and starting earlier are not necessarily beneficial? How could
they not be?
Research into second-language learning suggests that there may be no optimum
age since adults can learn as efficiently as children and indeed more quickly. What
matters are local conditions. To illustrate the applied linguist’s insistence on the
need to take account of local conditions I refer to three very different contexts: an
Australian private girls’ school; the Nepal government school system; and French
immersion in Canada.