The Role of Age of Language Acquisition

A. Children’s Language Acquisition

It is argued that second language acquisition is learned among children in two

ways, simultaneously or sequentially as demonstrated by Halgunseth (2009) as she

cites Tabors (2008). Young children acquire L1 and L2 languages what it seems to be

almost without any effort through a process that is called simultaneous second

language learning. According to her, simultaneous learners are children under the age

of three who are exposed to their mother tongue at home and another language in an

early educational context such as kindergarten or other early program. However, those

learners can also be children from a multi-language home where the child is exposed

to two different languages at home, for example Spanish from mom and English from

dad (Halgunseth, 2009, as cited by Tabors, 2008). She points out that although being

exposed to two different languages at home, children learn both languages the same

way without favouring one or the other. As their brain mechanism allows them to

learn more than one language, they construct two separate language systems in their

brains for each language. Similarly, this language system is almost identical to the

process that children develop through exposure to one language (Halgunseth, 2009).

When the child reaches the age of 6 months, they are able to distinguish between the

two languages and at this point they may begin to favour one language over the other.

If parents expose their child to one language more than the other, the child might

focus more on the language that it receives more exposure from (Espinosa, 2008;

Kuhl, 2004; Kuhl et al., 2006; abors, 2008).

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In sequential language learning environment, the child speaks its native

language but is also exposed or introduced to a second language. For example, when a

Spanish speaking child attends class where English is the dominant language spoken.

Halgunseth states that contrary to simultaneous language learning, sequential learning

is not related to any age factor, but it can be stimulated or influenced by elements like

motivation. There are four stages of sequential second language learning according to

her, which are the following:

Stage 1: Home Language Use: Children might refuse to use their native language

even though others do not understand them.

Stage 2: Silent Period: Children can hardly speak but rely on nonverbal

communication. It is argued that the younger the child is, the longer the

silent period might last.

Stage 3: Telegraphic and Formulaic Speech: At this stage children will start to speak

in the target language but only using short phrases or repeat the words of

others.

Stage 4: Productive Language, children construct their own sentences. Those

sentences might be very basic and incorrect but with time it will improve

(Helgunseth, 2009).

Although children are exposed to two languages at the same time at an early

age, it does not have to mean that they confuse the languages easily. As mentioned,

children become bilingual sometimes when one parent converses in one language

while the other converses in the second language. Additionally, parents might

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converse to each other in both languages so children are exposed to both languages.

However, being bilingual has its downside also (Helgunseth 2009).

B. Age and Second Language Acquisition

The second language acquisition competences among adults seem to differ

significantly from the way children acquire their first language. This has led

researcherson the path of investigating the development of the Critical Period

Hypothesis (CPH). Originally CPH was introduced by Penfield and Roberts in 1959

and was later made popular and discussed further by Lenneberg in 1967. Brown

(2007) refers to this hypothesis (CPH) as “a biologically determined period of life

when language can be acquired more easily and beyond which time language is

increasingly difficult to acquire” (p. 57). According to him, “Critical point for second

language acquisition occurs around puberty, beyond which people seem to be

relatively incapable of acquiring a second language”(p. 58). Also, this has led to

confusion among many who took it for granted that once you reach a certain age level

(12-13) you would be considered too late for successful second language acquisition

(Brown 2002).It is important to investigate if L2 learning capacity declines over a

period. There are rather few studies that thoroughly investigate SLA achievement

between old and young language learners. David Singleton (2004) cites Seright

(1985), who points out that only few studies that deal with success and age-related

issues between young and old learners, show that the younger learners perform better

than adult L2 learners.

Furthermore, right supports her claims by citing an experiment on the learning

of Esperanto that was conducted by Thorndike in 1928. Singleton says that this study

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shows young learners performing better than the old ones. In addition, she also cites

d’Anglejan et al.’s study from 1981 of Canadian immigrants who were learning

French in an intensive language course which also shows how young learners gained

more success than older learners, or in other words, less success with age (Singleton

2004).

On the other hand, there is evidence that favours the hypothesis that “the older

the better” in terms of second language acquisition. However, Singleton points out

that all of those investigations were the result of formal instruction. In other words,

these investigations are short-term research and based on SLA in primary school

classroom and L2 bilingual programs. Also, he does mention that the results of some

immigrant studies indicate an advantage for older learners. Most of the relevant

studies that Singleton mentions involve children as at least one element of

comparison. Hence, there are few studies that incorporate teenagers and adults of

different ages and that show evidence that older learners perform better than those

who are older. Singleton shows that some immigrant studies suggest that L2 learning

improves with age, as he cites and refers to a study from 1974 that Ervin-Tripp

conducted of 31 young English speaking children who had been exposed to French

for a period that spanned nine months. The results of Ervin-Tripp’s research showed

that the older students outperformed the younger learners in every field of the learning

process (Singleton 2004).

Since the early 1990s, studies have shown positive results of older beginners

that achieve high level of L2 proficiency. Singleton explains how White and Genesee

(1996) hardly found any differences between English Grammatically test scores

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among native-like French speakers who begun learning English after the age of

twelve and those attained by native-speakers in language control groups. Moreover,

Singleton talks about an investigation conducted by Bongaerts et al. (1995) about

Dutch learners that were beginning to learn English in a classroom environment after

the age of twelve. This research demonstrated that classroom learners were able to

gain English pronunciation ratings within the same range as native-speakers

(Singleton 2004). Interestingly, this shows that even though L2 acquisition began at

the age of 12 and in classroom instruction setting, those learners could nevertheless

attain a native-like accent.

As previously stated, there are evidence that favor “the younger the better”

and also studies indicating that older students can exceed younger learners. In

addition, there is another hypothesis that indicates that younger learners are extremely

efficient in acquiring native-like accent in second language. It has to be taken into

account that for this to happen, it is important that the exposure to the target language

is sufficient. Moreover, this is confirmed by Singleton (2004:84) as he states “the

strong version of this position being that unless exposure to the L2 begins in the

childhood years an authentic accent will not normally be acquired”.

It is also important to discuss if it is better over the long run to start learning

L2 at an early age. Krashen et al. (1979) explore this subject further and show the

short-term and long-term results in L2 acquisition. They claim that:

1) Adults proceed through early stages of syntactic and morphological

development faster than children (where time and exposure are held constant).

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2) Older children acquire faster than younger children (again, in early stages of

syntactic and morphological development where time and exposure are held

constant).

3) Acquirers who begin natural exposure to second languages during childhood

generally achieve higher second language proficiency than those beginning as

adults. (p.161).

There seems to be no clear evidence that can without a doubt conclude that

children learning an L2 will outperform older language learners in the long run.

Singleton’s conclusion and summary regarding this matter is that it is not possible to

conclude, based on current studies that younger l2 learners are more efficient and

successful language learners than the older ones (Singleton 2004). On the other hand,

Singleton does mention that there is extremely reliable evidence to support the

hypothesis that over the long run, those who begin learning an L2 in childhood

generally gain higher level of proficiency than those who begin at later stages in life

(Singleton 2004). However, the studies that contradict this hypothesis are those made

in a classroom environment. Therefore, it is hard to compare classroom instruction

over the long run and natural L2 acquisition that does not take place inside a

classroom.

C. Does age really matter in SLA?

The question when is the best age for Second language acquisition seems to be

connected with the amount input or exposure to the target language. Scholars are still

struggling to understand sufficiently what effect age has on the language learner when

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the exposure to the target language is not enough. Munoz (2010) argues that the

amount and the quality of the language input is extremely important to young learners

at the early stages of second language learning. She presents results that compare

younger and older language learners and declares that young learners consistently

show better language results than those who start SLA later on in life as adults.

Similarly, she declares that those results provide positive support for the Critical

Period Hypothesis (CPH) and indicate what has been discussed earlier about the

existence of certain age period and incomplete language acquisition. Discussing this

further, this strong evidence supporting the claim that children benefit much more by

participating in the cultural environment, where they are naturally exposed to the

language input rather than starting at an early age in classroom environment, show

that children are exposed to more quality of natural input of the target language

(Munoz, 2010, p. 40-41). This suggest that exposure is more important than the age

factor when comes to SLA.

According to Larson-Hall (2008), most studies on the critical period seem to

favor the theory that “the younger, the better”. However those studies have been

conducted when learners were active participants and culturally involved in the target

country. The participants were actively exposed to the target language on daily basis

and received great amount of exposure to the target language outside of the

classroom.

Researchers agree on the importance of the amount of exposure regarding the

critical age of SLA because there is no guarantee of “the younger the better” when the

exposure is minimal. As discussed by Larson-Hall, children and adults learn language

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through different strategies and have different learning abilities. She talks about how

young learners learn in an implicit way, which makes minimal exposure to the target

language not enough to form morphological, syntactic or phonological system. This

statement is confirmed when older results are analyzed and show that there is no

linguistic advantage of SLA, having in mind “the younger the better” when the

exposure is minimal (Larson-Hall 2008). One of those earlier studies from 1974,

conducted by Oller and Nagato and later cited by Larson-Hall involve Japanese

elementary school students who were starting to learn English (1-2 hours per week)

and they compared them with older students who were beginning their SLA in junior

high. Statistical differences were diagnosed within the younger learners but not within

the older and the conclusion was that the advantages of the younger learners were not

present anymore. Oller & Nagato’s argument for this particular reason show no

differences within the older group and results were purely statistical because the older

students had 50 students and the younger group had 24 which demonstrate that if

effects sizes are small, the results from statistics can disappear (Tversky and

Kahneman 1971). However, more recent investigations regarding “the earlier, the

better” are still debatable and the focal point has led scholars to investigate further the

language exposure and motivational factors.

Larson-Hall’s investigation from 2008 suggests that young learners have more

positive attitude towards studying a foreign language (Larson-Hall, 2008:24). In

conclusion, the study made by her focused on if there was any correlation between

starting early and high scores in environment that provided minimal input of exposure

to the second language as the debate has often been about how age plays a significant

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role in a natural or immersion environments. According to her, this is not always true

as she argues that “age does seem to play a non-negligible role in improving second

language acquisition, given that language learners receive enough input“. Moreover,

the reality is that age can play a role in improving second language acquisition, but it

is important to provide students with enough exposure to the target language during

their learning process.

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