What is a Critical Period in Language Learning?
言語習得の天賦の才能や、年齢とともに失われる子供の優位性については、多くの噂が流れています。ここでは、第二言語能力と年齢について詳しく見ていきましょう。双方の研究を見ることで、異なる視点や妥当な点が浮かび上がってきます。また、学習においてコントロールできる要素を強調することで、新しい言語や更新された言語の熱意を吸収することは、避けることが難しくなります。(English) Many rumours circulate about a natural ability to learn languages and the advantage children may have that dissipates with age. Let's take a closer look at second language ability and age. Different perspectives and valid points emerge by looking at studies on both sides. Also, by highlighting the factors that can be controlled in learning, absorbing new or renewed language enthusiasm is hard to avoid.
Is There a Critical Period for Language Learning?
//Summary - Level-C2//
The 'critical period' hypothesis suggests an optimal age range for language learning, after which it becomes more challenging to learn a new language. This theory often explains why children learn languages more quickly than adults. However, the exact age for this critical period varies between researchers, with some suggesting it's as early as the first few months of life, while others suggest it's around the age of 18—the debate centres on whether this superior ability in children is due to biological or environmental factors. Nevertheless, children and adults can learn new languages successfully, albeit with different strategies and challenges. It's essential to focus on controllable factors such as the quality of learning materials, effort and consistency. Ultimately, language learning is a rewarding endeavour, regardless of age.
1)
What is a Critical Period in Language Learning?
A "critical period" is a wordy cutoff point after a fertile learning age. The following statements regarding an age where learning a foreign language are joint:
"Children learn languages easier than adults."
"If you start learning a language too late, you can't become fully fluent."
"Children are little sponges for language."
"Just put your child in an immersion school or hire a native-speaking nanny, then you don't have to try to teach them at home or wait for high school classes!"
These statements all relate to the "critical period" hypothesis. Many people have noticed or heard that children who immigrate to a new country learn the language faster than their parents. Children with a foreign nanny also wow people with their language ability. Immersion preschools with native teachers produce excellent results, particularly regarding the children's accents.
The critical period hypothesis states that children have better language-learning abilities. Their abilities start to drop at a certain age. Estimates about the exact age cutoff for a linguistic critical period vary. Supposed cutoff ages for the required period, including those based on research, include the first few months of life, age 5, the preteen years, or age 18.
2)
The key question
The key question about critical periods has to do with biology. It's a question of nature versus nurture. Is children's superior ability in second-language acquisition due to biology? There are many related questions along with this one. Are the brain and the sense organs, like ears (which are neurological too), more fit to learn languages earlier?
Or is children's superior ability a product of one or more unknown factors? Could it be that frequently learning more information regularly than adults makes the difference? Or are adults just not trying as hard as children? A final question might be: are weak critical periods overblown?
3)
Why Does the Cutoff Age Matter?
A cutoff age matters for children set up to learn by parents and adults who want to know themselves. Should schools and parents prioritize language learning in the early years instead of waiting until high school classes? If children's advantage is not biological, can adults create the same conditions for themselves that help children learn so well?
4)
Age's importance for adults
Although an adult may excel with many other types of information, like math, history facts, problem-solving, or even first language skills (like English), second languages usually challenge at some point. Typically, adults are surprised by the difficulty of second language acquisition.
Adults also wonder whether it's worthwhile to take on a new language. It's just a practicality. Knowing whether you have enough resources is critical since language acquisition requires significant time, money, and mental energy. A second language can help with a career. Foreign languages are excellent travel skills. However, depending on the goals, getting to certain functional proficiency levels is critical,
Another important consideration for adults is choosing a language. Suppose an adult wants to learn a language; looking at the situation from an informed view of the likelihood of mastering that foreign language is just practical. If a person believes they're past a critical period or doubts their aptitude, they'll pick a language less different from theirs. For example, a native English speaker would want to choose a romance language over Arabic for a more accessible language acquisition experience.
5)
Age's importance for children
Parents wouldn't want to miss a critical period because, compared to older children and teenagers, getting young children language exposure is less work for parents. It's often less expensive too. The children learning don't have to work as hard either. Learning early is more fun for learners and parents if they join in!
One huge advantage is young children can learn to pronounce very well. They're already pronouncing new words all the time. Mistakes don't usually bring them down; they're used to errors being part of the learning process. That's because they're newer at life.
They have less ego involved in their learning endeavours. They're constantly learning. In the error-prone language game, children have this unique advantage of resilience.
6)
Language Fun
Age is also crucial for children because their learning style is more pleasant. It's not as much rote (laborious) exercise. Children can watch and read story-based language material. The plot drives them along. Animated people and animals catch their attention. Songs liven things up. They don't need to bear long grammar lessons. A three-year-old does not need to learn about sentence structures. Memorization drudgery, begone!
Using the brain's natural ability to mimic language combined with fun, toddlers and young children may not even need even to notice their second language lessons are such. Suppose there is, in fact, a critical period, and we know that first language acquisition isn't interrupted. In that case, children's fun and games are a pleasant, inexpensive way to take advantage of fun or experience-based learning. Using the brain's natural ability to mimic language during a sensitive period for learning is just more pleasant and efficient.
This looks like taking advantage of free and inexpensive options or supplementing pricier options with them. From TV shows to computer games to family members to native nannies, additional opportunities abound. Sharing the cost of a group or online class is possible. Sending young children to summer camp can provide an immersive, fun experience. If immersion preschool is their first experience, they won't have known any alternative. There's less resistance from younger kids.
7)
Focus on Reasons Anyone Can Learn
While science may point to specific sensitive periods, science also keeps changing. By focusing on the brain's natural ability for anyone to learn, the second language acquisition process begins and stays more positive.
8)
Focus on reasons adults can learn
The best advice to adults who are demoralized based on witnessing a child learn quickly or learning their critical period has possibly closed is simple: focus on what you can control. The quality of your materials or class, your effort, and your consistency in language learning are all controllable. Getting a fun in-person or online conversation partner is within your power. Maybe even try to immerse yourself locally or travel to do so. Have good times with your language, even only for a few days.
There are specific humps you can get over in language development, after which it becomes easier to consume fun material in that language. Playing games or having a rewarding conversation is also easier with better skills. After the beginner level, using your tongue can be a blast.
Once you can consume material in that language, as in watching TV, music videos, and other videos, the plot can keep you going. It's the same with books. Listening to music is an enjoyable way to learn as well.
9)
Focus on reasons children and teenagers can learn
As with adults, it's best to focus on why your child can learn a second language well, not whether a specific period may have closed. The research on the critical period in language acquisition may keep changing. However, most children are learners. They're resilient and curious.
10)
Young Children's Attributes in Learning
Children are constantly learning—their unfamiliarity with their world demands it. Exposing them to exciting and fun foreign language material can go a long way. Here are some good-news tips for children and teenagers learning a foreign language.
Young children are practising listening to different sounds in their native language. In scientific terms, their auditory processing skills are superior. Their vocal equipment frequently tries to make new sounds too. As we age, we get less pronunciation practice because we already know our first spoken language. Young children exposed to the right sort of language practice can pronounce beautifully. Their accents make older language learners jealous!
11)
Teenagers and Young Adults' Attributes in Learning
Students keep memorizing through high school and higher education or vocational training. Adults tend to only remember once in a while. Work exceptions might be if they give presentations, recite daily specials, or sell products with many features and parts. Many adults learning late in life are disappointed at their absorption level when learning a foreign language. Taking advantage of memorizing skills when they're honed is critical. Even if there's a gap, relearning words is much easier than the first time a person learns them.
Even language nerds find grammar a humbling experience now and then. Although we consider grammar a topic for students under age sixteen, most students learn new grammar and word patterns in their first language until age eighteen or through college. This is great news for second language learning ability. As students read denser, older, or more artistic texts in English and history classes, they'll encounter more clauses strung together. For example, following this sentence takes more effort:
12)
"After having dusted, but before vacuuming, John rearranged the books on the shelves, as he did once a year."
The order of John's actions isn't sequential. This convoluted order emphasizes the rearranging of the books while deemphasizing the cleaning chores. Processing a complex sentence like this in one's first language is helpful for foreign-language learning. Many languages have a word order that varies from the standard word order in English. Subject-verb-object is the normal progression of a simple English sentence. A much simpler sentence following that pattern would be, "John dusted the shelves." A complete but straightforward multi-part (multi-verb) sentence would be: "John dusted, rearranged the books on the shelves, then vacuumed." By high school, most students can process the first convoluted sentence above "After having dusted…." Following a lengthy and non-sequential ruling is excellent for approaching non-subject-verb-object sentences in a second language.
13)
Recent Science on Age's Effect on Language Development
Studies supporting many different viewpoints on the critical period for language development exist.
14)
Research for a specific language acquisition period
Good news for parents of older children—or teenagers who aspire—emerged 2018. Youngsters continue to learn foreign-language grammar well until age 18. However, starting by age 10 was a critical cutoff. When trying to master English grammar, beginning by age ten was necessary. Nevertheless, other researchers had previously found that the second language critical period differs from the first language. In any language, the likelihood of reaching native proficiency, as in high fluency, declines after age 10.
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The findings that students learn grammar well until age 18 were based on a grammar quiz taken by 670,000 students amid language acquisition. This is a large number of participants, which makes the results more specific. It's not clear why age 17 or 18 is the cutoff. Researchers speculate whether it is due to cultural or biological processes and changes. ALTA wonders whether the narrowing of information high school graduates learn had an impact. Even in college, some majors will mostly rely on their existing grammar and take a few classes outside their major.
As mentioned above, different researchers studying first-language critical periods did find a crucial early critical period. Children who do not receive enough language input in the first year of life experience language deficiencies. They have trouble mastering grammar and proper word order. This is exciting info indicating a certain early critical period.
However, in babies, neural pruning, when the brain eliminates neurons that are not useful in its current environment, has been evident for a while. What would genuinely support a critical foreign-language period would be finding brain development or changes not influenced by the environment in the form of schooling and learning tendencies that change at age 17 to 18.
16)
Language acquisition period criticism
Luckily for older people or parents of teenagers who want to learn a language, the critical period hypothesis does have its critics. In addition, research indicates adults can learn foreign languages with high proficiency and fluency. Another point in favour of older children and adults' potential is that research favouring a critical period doesn't always point to a particular age.
17)
Critical Period Opposition Research
In 2001, Stefanik found evidence disproving a critical period in the Slovak language. Although the study didn't include many participants, its results did have the positive advantage of the older participants. People who worry about young children's benefits of a sensitive period will be pleased to know that all participants began learning Slovak after age of sixteen. The evidence didn't point to them having much of a disadvantage in reading a Slovak text and writing an essay.
The other positive news is that 5% of adult bilinguals began learning in adulthood. While 5% isn't high, it is a more positive percentage than it would seem at first glance. That's because it's easier to make a child comply with learning the target language. Immersion and pronouncing new words aren't always comfortable. Adults have the autonomy to slip out of most uncomfortable learning situations.
18)
A child in an immersion school or a decently comprehensive language class cannot disenroll, leave the room or skip class. A child with a native-speaking family member, nanny, or tutor must communicate and learn if that is how the situation is set up. Even having a child watch target-language cartoons a few mornings a week can tap into a critical-period-like effect.
The child may not want to watch the cartoons. However, if deprived (by the parent) of an exit option or something more interesting, they usually pay attention. Most children get sucked into watching fun characters have adventures on the screen, even if they don't understand the words at first.
Meanwhile, getting engrossed in target language instruction is much more difficult for an adult. Being entertained by art like books and TV shows is less likely. Adult plots are more advanced. The plot points happen faster too. Likewise, pairing an adult with a bilingual person or tutor follows standard social conventions over which the adult has more sway. They can't be obligated to speak to a tutor or nanny like a child can be.
Adults who don't understand enough may get frustrated. More frequently than is acknowledged, they dislike that they can't produce more faster or understand. They disenroll from the class. They turn off the French TV show. Simple chores become more pertinent than reviewing their textbook's practice quiz results. This is one of the reasons that immersion is so effective for adults.
19)
So, age plays out differently, and there may be diverse critical periods. Children can be obligated to learn a second language much more quickly. An adult would need to immigrate to another country or entangle themselves in a native-speaking community to get the same level of obligation. Adults are only forced to learn a language if they become a refugee, their spouse gets transferred abroad, or they must discover it for work or the military. Most adults who don't want to know can usually find a way out. Even students studying abroad in high school or college can keep their learning to a minimum and get by.
Meanwhile, millions of kids worldwide are obligated to learn foreign languages by parents and schools. They push through the tribulations of learning. They often don't mind as much because learning is the main task in their lives; they do it in many subjects five days a week.
20)
Research that Would Prove or Disprove
While it may seem like scientists and linguists should have more definitive answers about languages' critical period for learning already, it's not easy to conduct this research. One reason is the lack of ability to force adults into language-learning situations. As mentioned above, it's usually a dramatic life circumstance.
21)
Depriving children of learning
Are they depriving children of learning? That sounds mean as children need to know! It's not just tell; it's unethical. However, if we could limit children to learning only as much as the average adult learns in their daily life, research studies could get closer to determining whether children have superior natural second language prowess.
The average child learns much more than adults in a given week. Children don't know much about the world besides being in school to learn quickly. A nine-year-old may learn how to use a screwdriver, what a yield sign means, and how to make popcorn in the microwave in one week. Every week, skills and facts get added to those their teachers arrange for them to learn.
Meanwhile, the average adult has learned the pertinent traffic signs and how to use the three most essential tools for years. Most adults learn a few things from work, the news, other people, and new technology each week or month. Their learning skills may not be as sharp, whereas children complete the equivalent of a full-time job's worth of learning.
22)
The scientific method used in studies requires holding factors constant and testing one different aspect at a time. If a study purposely limits a few children's learning to only learning a few facts and skills in a month like an adult, that would be unethical. To gather children who have been denied education and haven't known many skills at home for the study is problematic.
Even if these children could be gathered to compare to adults in a language-learning study, the adults and children would need to be similar in many ways for the investigation to produce significant results. They'd need identical intelligence scores on standardized tests for language-related skills.
Their previous language-learning experience would need to be comparable or non-existent. It would be ideal if adults and children grew up with similar incomes and family life. Also, a country like the US has many dialects. You guessed it; participants who hailed from one region, like the south or midwest, would produce a better study.
23)
Neurological evidence
Studies that would help determine the existence of a critical period, or multiple critical periods, could also come from neuroscience. Without delving into detailed neuroscience, there are several brain areas where language abilities are housed. These include the classic portions called Broca's area and Wernicke's area.
24)
The Ego Factor
Children have less ego about learning. That means they're less hesitant to try new things, like pronouncing a strange word. Trying to arrive at the correct answer and being wrong isn't usually as demoralizing for young children as for adults. Most children's egos are more resilient to learning a language.
Again, adults who feel embarrassed or hostile can usually stop trying to learn a language for the day or forever.
Meanwhile, teachers and parents more easily obligated children to undergo the uncomfortable "try, try again" needed to develop language skills.
25)
Focus on the Controllable: Learning Tips
As with any learning or skill-based endeavour, focus on what you can control. The science may continue to go back and forth. There will always be anecdotal exceptions. People will find reasons for struggling with a challenging endeavour, like learning a language.
When you fail, try, try again:
take the material in smaller chunks
try speaking or writing shorter sentences
return to simpler grammar: The dog walks.
Try rewinding or rereading and make sure you understand the grammar principles. It's normal to need to relearn grammar many times.
26)
The Bottom Line on Language Acquisition:
Language learning is so worth it, although it is often challenging. As the great Les Brown says: "If it's hard, then do it hard!" Even a low proficiency in language learning can be fun, rewarding, and valuable. Children who start early will benefit from the time spent, even if they don't develop language skills.
Is There a Critical Period for Language Learning?
https://www.altalang.com/beyond-words/is-there-a-critical-period-for-language-learning/