Second Language Learning And Age Related Factors English Language Essay

Second talking to Learning And hop on Related Factors position speech communication EssayAge is one of the most important affective factors in Second Langu ripen Acquisition(SLA). There is some consensus among SLA investigateers that be on as an affective factor that brings virtually dispa appreciate doing st successions in turn speech checkering. Most experts in any case agree that separate learners learn differently dep finising on many variables standardised learnedness opportunities, the motivation to learn, individual differences and schooling styles in bet on diction erudition. However, on that point is little consensus as to how far individuals of the akin hop on aggroup of learners follow a quasi(prenominal) and/or linear pattern of dustup learnedness. The question of how developgenial stages interact with individual procure differences is still a question of great debate. It is generally believed that jr. learners wealthy person certain advanta ges everywhere elderly learners in speech communication reading. The common nonion is that junior children learn L2 easily and quickly in comparison to quondam(a) children (Ellis, 2008 Larsen-Freeman, 2008 Mayberry Lock, 2003). The relationship amidst age and success in SLA, though complex in nature, is united to the Critical Period Hypothesis (CPH). CPH, also known as the refined period, is defined as the period during which a child can acquire delivery easily, rapidly, perfectly, and with bring out reading(Richards Schmidt, 2002, p.145). The CPH suggests that a period of time, between birth and somewhere n primordial the age when a child enters pubescence, exists in which the larn a spot phraseology can be accomplished more(prenominal) rapidly and easily than times falling outside of this period i.e. post pubescence (Larsen-Freeman Long, 2008).SLA theories and research tolerate explained the impact of age in bet on words learnedness. As reported by Ligh t bown and Spada (2008), learning depends on learners characteristics and the environment. Their findings suggested that senior learners hand over a gameer level of problem solving and metalinguistics abilities than jr. learners. queryers discoveriesResearchers admit center on learners orthoepy, phrase structure and grammatical morphemes. Mark Patkowski (1982) examined the level of speak face of sixty-seven immigrants to the U.S. His finding was that pre-puberty learners acquire countenance manner of speaking reform than post-puberty learners. He also pointed out that two some other factors- space of residence and step of instruction- atomic number 18 inseparable from the age factor. Johnson and Newport (quoted in Light bown Spada, 2008) order autochthonous-like talking to abilities and the surgery levels lower in older children than younger in a pack of forty-six Chinese and Koreans speakers. On the other hand, Snow and Hoefnagel-Hohle (1982), from their resear ch carried in Holland, think that givings learned winged than children and the rate of blurb language learning was high. David Singleton(2003) also decl bed that the tendency for younger learners to do breach in the capacious run in the matter of certify language lexical acquisition is no more than a tendency (p. 22). In this paper, an sweat is made to theme and analyze the age related to to research on the bag of diminutive period hypothesis and other relevant variables. The hear question in this paper is how age affects second language acquisition. Do people of the same age group possess the same learning characteristics and learn in the same ratio inSLA? Are there any certain features that the researchers have agreed upon regarding the age factor in SLA and CPH?Critical periodThe whimsicality of exact period for a second language acquisition has been associated with several hypotheses. Some researchers have focused on the view that the younger learners as the ru in learners whereas others opine the older learners as the break in learners. However, there are different perspectives on how the children and bounteouss learn a unusual or second language. Adults naturally find themselves in such slurs that demand more complex language and expression of more involved ideas whereas children lack pressure and maturity in second languagelearning.The ExperimentsDavid Singleton (1989) offered a descend of proposals related to age and second language acquisition. The most ordinary nonions are the younger =the break away and the older =the better (Singleton, p. 31). He, on the basis of introductory studies and research on age factor, focused on learners pronunciation skill and other linguistics features. There are a number of research to support the younger the better hypothesis. Yamanda et al. (qtd. in Singleton, 1989) study 30Japanese easy school pupils of seven to ten ages old. These students did not have any previous experience of posit ion. The researchers used a list of 40 English voice communication and recorded the rate of success of the students. Their finding was that more than average older learners decreased with age i.e. the older the age the lower the score.Furthermore, Mark S. Patkowski (1982) carried out a research on 67 passing educated immigrants to the unify States from various backgrounds. In his control subjects, 33 subjects were those who had come to the join States in front the age of 15 (pre-puberty group) and 34 subjects who were post-puberty group with similar backgrounds. He examined the mouth English of the subjects, and analyzed a difference between learners who began to learn English before puberty and those who began learning English later afterwardswards puberty (Patkowski, 1982, p.58). His directs showed a fast negative relationship between age of comer and syntactic rating. He concluded that the pre-puberty group was better in language learning than the post-puberty group. He further addressedthe only factor which was highly associated with the level of syntactic development attained by learners was the age at which acquisition of English began.Practice and instructional variables showed little or no association with thedependent variables. The result, then, appeared to strongly support the hypothesisof an age-related limitation on the ability to acquire full command of a secondlanguage. (Patkowski, 1982, p. 59)He also concluded that the age factor is highly related to other several factors like the numbers of historic period spent in the United States, amount of information exposure to English and amount of noble instruction in English. One of the supporting evidences in the field of second language acquisition comes from the experience of immigrants. A group of researchers have shown a relationship between age ofentry, length of residence and level of language acquisition (Singleton 1989 Ekstrand 1982 Asher Gracia 1989 Lightbown Spada 2008). Ashe r and Gracia examined acquisition of pronunciation of 71 Cuban immigrants to California. The subjects were of aged groups from seven to 19 years. The majority of them had been in the United States for about five years. Theyconcluded that not one of the 71 Cuban subjects was judged to have American native pronunciation (qtd. in Singleton, 1989, p. 83). They also figured out a fact that the younger a child had been when entering the United States, the higher the probability of a native like accent. The Lenneburgian notion of CPH that puberty as a milestone for SLA has been reversed by the other researchers. Carroll (1963) suggested that the ability to acquire a native like accent declines toward puberty. Ekstrand (1982) carried out a research on age and length of residence of2400 Swedish pupils. The turn up consisted of six areas including pronunciation, diction, listening, reading, oral and indite production. Ekstrand grouped the total population into 26 categories according to th ird calendar month of year of birth and observed effects of age and effects of length of residence in the attend of second language. He found that language learning ability goes near linearly with age. He also discover that social and emotional adjustment did not seem to be related to age. He deduced that age was strongly correlated with grade levels because quality and measurement of instruction was an important factor in second language learning. For Ekstrand, the more developed the brain was, the better it was suited for second language learning.Susan Oyama (1976) canvas 60 male Italian immigrants who entered to the United States at ages ranging from six to 20. She examined the dot of American accent and proficiency inEnglish listening. She concluded that age is as an important factor to achieve native like accent. The youngest arrivals performed a better accent. She has shown the relation of age and listeningcomprehension as followsthose subjects who began learning English before age 11 showedcomprehension score similar to those of native speakers, whereas later arrivals didless well those who arrived after the age of 16 showed markedly lowercomprehension scores than the native. (Oyama, 1982, p. 23)A further immigrant study appeared in support of the younger the better hypothesis. Johnson and Newport (qtd. in Lightbown Spada, 2008) selected 46 Chinese and Korean experimental subjects in their research. They block outed some rules of English word structure and syntax among the participants of aged groups from trey to 15 and with those aged groups from 17 to39. The result was that those who began learning later did not have native like language abilities and their performance on the test varied more widely. Robert Dekeyser (2000) conducted a replica of the Johnson and Newport with a group of Hungarian immigrants to the United States. On the contrary, he concluded that adult learners were better than the younger ones. The second strong hypothesis i s that older learners are more successful that than younger language learners in SLA. This notion was highly supported by a number of short experimental condition experimental researchers. These studies and research were based on teaching projects and second language immersion programs. Some of these studies have highlighted adolescents and adults of different ages where results have indicated that the older learners are far better than the youngerones.In 1967 Ashor and Price (as cited in Singleton, 1989) have carried out an experiment with96 students from the second, fourth and eighth grades of a school and 37 undergraduate students from a college. The subjects did not have any previous familiarity of Russian, the tar pop offed language. After one-third short trainings conducted in Russian language, the results showed that theeight graders performed largely better than the second graders and the fourth graders. They also noticed a consistently positive relationship with advanc ing age because of above average mental ability of the adults. Politzer and Weiss (as quoted in Singleton, 1989) have conducted some other study in which they found that an advantage of SLA for older learners than younger ones.Their subjects were second, fifth, seventh and ninth graders. The experimental procedures were consisted of an audile discrimination test, a pronunciation test and a reading test among 257 pupils. They recorded a gradual improvement of scores with an increase age in all trio tests. Similarly, Olson and Samuel in the 1970s (qtd. in Singleton, 1989) have investigated the relative capacity of native English speakers in three different age groups on 20 simple-minded pupils,20 junior high school pupils and 20 college students. On the test of pronunciation, it was found that two older groups performed significantly better than the elementary age group. In other studies on age and SLA, many researchers have mentioned a similar finding that adult subjects performe d better than the children (Bland Keislar, 1966 Smith Braine, 1973Burstall her colleagues, 1974 Singleton, 1989). Bland and Keislar took six fifth graders and four kindergartners in their study. They conducted an individualized program of oral French. They mentioned that amongst the fifth graders this time ranged from 4.5 to 11 hours, the hateful being 6.9 hours, whereas amongst the kindergarteners the ranges from 12.5 to 17.5 hours and the mean was 15.1 hours (Qtd. in Singleton 1989, p. 98). In other words, the younger learners tookmore than twice as massive as the older learners. A salient scale experiment was conducted by Burstall and her colleagues (Qtd. in Singleton 1989) in the 1970s. The study include three age groups of pupils from selected primary schools in England and Wales. Among the 11 year old, 13 year old and 16 year old students, the results indicated that older students dramatically achieved higher score in listening and speaking tests than the younger ones. early(a) researchers of SLA interested in assessing phonological skills of learners suggest a common impression that younger learners acquire a native like accent in the target language.Dunkel and Pillet (reported in Singleton, 1989) compared the proficiency in French between elementary school pupils and beginning students of French from the university. They found that the younger learners pronunciation was better than that of the older ones. However, in both written and aural tests, the university students had better performance than the younger ones. In another study,Fathman and Precup (reported in Singleton, 1989) tested oral proficiency in English on 20 children and 20 adults in a formal setting in Mexico. Their finding also brought a similar conclusion that the children scored better in English pronunciation than the adults but the adults scored better then the children in syntax. Some studies, on the other hand, have focused on the issues of culture and variations of accent am ong the speakers of the same language. Lobov (1920)has claimed that people rarely acquire the accent of a particular region if they move into that region after puberty (qtd. in Singleton, 1989, p. 111).While considering younger learners in long run, Stephen Krashen (1979) has forwarded three proposals in the domain of morph syntax. Krashens positions in SLA are as sideline Adults proceed through early stages of syntactic and morphological development faster than children (where time and exposure are held constant). Older children acquire faster than younger children (again time and exposure are held constant). Acquirers who begin natural exposure to second languages during childhood generally achieve higher second language proficiency than those beginning as adults. (qtd. In Singleton, 1989, p. 117)Krashen et al. studied syntax and morphology of children in formal and informal learning contexts. They claimed that older learners proceed through the early stages of second language g rammatical development more quickly than younger learners.Anan Fathman (1982) observed a difference in the rate of learning English phonology, morphology and syntax based on the differences in age. She focused on the children aged 11 to 15 years who received significantly higher scores in learning the morphology and syntax of a second language than those children ofaged six to ten years. One of the most significant studies related to age and SLA comes from the research of Catherine E. Snow and Marian Hoefnagel-Hohle (1982). They investigated 51 English subjects in five age groups whose target language was Dutch. The subjects accomplishments at three points in the Netherlands were compared with the accomplishments of two go speakers of Dutch and native speakers. The beginners were tested three times at 4 to 5 month intervals, but the modern learners were tested only once. The subjects were tested individually at school or at home in various categories-pronunciation, auditory discri mination, morphology, conviction repetition, sentence translation, sentence judgment, Peabody picture vocabulary test, story comprehension and storytelling. The results of their study gave strong evidence against the critical period hypothesis. All the tests showed a rapid learning by the 12 to 15 years old and adults during the first few months of acquisition. They mentioned The adultsfell increasingly behind because their subsequent improvement was very slow. The teenagers had achieved almost native performance extremely quickly, within a few months of outset to speak Dutch.The crucial findings of relevance for evaluating the CPH were that the 3 to 5 years old scored consistently worse than the older groups on all the test and that the 12 to 15 years old showedthe most rapid acquisition of all the skills tested. (Snow Hoefnagel-Hohle, 1982, p. 103)The ResultsTheir finding rejected the notion of younger learners as better learners in L2 acquisition. In the second study, Snow and Hoefnagel-Hohle took 81 subjects. Of them, 51 were beginners and31were advanced learners. In the result, it was found that in all cases the adolescent and adult subjects outperformed the younger subjects. The research has shown non-liner relationship between age and second language acquisition. Whether the long term or short term studies are conducted on syntax and morphology or pronunciation of a second language, there are as many conflicting views as the researchers.To address this situation, it is opted to quote Singleton (1989) that beyond the strict terms of Krashen et. al.s hypothesis the evidence concerning short term versus long term language attainment is more confused (p.119) and there is no common argument agreed by all the research. David Birdsong (2006) has studied theoretical issues and empirical findings of age related research of second language acquisition.He had found that brain memory, learning conditions and second language bear on speed are connected with age f actor. He has pointed out that morphological changes and cognitive process are different in young and adult learners. The next component besides Critical Period Hypothesis of second language acquisition is the variables related to the age factor. These variables can be motivation, solicitude, ego confidence, attitude, learning styles and so on. They are responsible in language acquisition in both children and adults. Their direct relationship to age as an indicant of language learning has been studied by various researchers.John Archibald (2005) has verbalise that it is hard to say whether critical period exists or not. He argued that it is often more difficult to predict knowledge or ability in any of the other areas of communicative competence (syntax, cohesion, sociolinguistics, etc.) based on age of acquisition (Archibald, 2005, p. 420). Rather he valued individual differences, the L2 classroom, circumscribed remark, modified interaction, and learning environment in secon d language learning context.bloody shame Schleppegrell (2008) has focused on health, classroom practices and learning styles as age related factors in second language learning. She says that older adults learn a foreign language for a specific purpose to be more in force(p) professionally, to be able to service in an anticipated foreign situation or for other instrumental reasons (Schleppegrell, 2008, p. 3). On the other hand, younger learners whitethorn not have extrinsic motivation or may not see a specific goal in learning another language. It is also noticed that children and adults do not always get the same quality and quantity of language introduce in both formal and informal learning settings (Lightbown Spada, 2008). It is also hard to say how these variables work as a filter or barrier in learning process of young and adults.As in Colliers study (1987) (qtd. in Singleton, 1989), the barrier of anxiety sometimes makes the adults less successful in second language. Languag e input is another factor linked to age. Stephen Krashen believes that the learner improves when he or she receives second language input at a level of comprehensible input (i+1). For Krashen the natural comprehension input has become the fundamental principle in SLA. This comprehensible input may change with age where older learners get an advantage over younger ones (Lightbown Spada, 2008).ConclusionSumming up, age is one of the characteristics that countersink the way in which anindividual learns second language. Age is highly associated with critical period in many research studies. There are a number of controversial issues related to second language acquisition and critical period hypothesis. As Singleton (2005) has predicted, a numerosity of CPs, like mythical hydra, whose multiplicity of heads and capacity to produce new heads rendered it impossible to deal with (p. 288). He declares the end of critical period. Some researchers limited the CP between per inatality and pube rty, while the others extended it after the puberty. Inthe realm of pedagogy, the researchers have advocated CPH into two main categories-the younger the better and the older the better. A group of researchers including Singleton, Yamanda et al., Carroll and et al, and Patkowski believed that the young learners have higher learning potentiality than the adults whereas Johnson and Newport, Dekeyser, Asher and Price, Politzer and Weiss, Olson and Samuel opined the opposite. The young learners are considered fluent in communication of the second language and achieve native like accent. Learners after the age of puberty do not acquire native like accent of a second language but have complex learning pattern. Research suggests that children and adults L2 learners pass through different developmental states in second language learning. Learning depends on the cognitive maturity and neurological factors. Julia Van reaping hook and Sarah Ferris (as quoted in Singleton, 2005) have shown the relationbetween age and second language acquisition as, One of the dangers of the emphasis on critical periods is that it prompts us to give birth too much tutelage to when learning occurs and too little attention to how learning might best occur (p. 105). Age is not everything in second language learning. However, factors related to the age, for example the learning opportunities, the motivation to learn, individual differences, and learning styles, are also important determining variables that affect the rate of second language learning in various developmental stages of thelearners.