Both research and the informal observations of those who are in daily contact with second-language learners suggest that an early start in a second language is neither a strictly necessary nor a universally sufficient condition for the attainment of native-like proficiency.
As John T. Many assume that critical learning periods apply not only to second-language learning, but to other school subjects, like math and reading. Such concerns arise from a simplistic and over-generalized application of critical periods to learning.
Foreign-Language Learning and Critical Periods The question of whether or not there is a critical period for learning a foreign language is not easily answered. But there is certainly no specific age at which the window of opportunity closes completely. Bialystok and Hakuta complicate the response to whether or not there is an optimal age for second-language grammar acquisition even further. Phonological Acquisition Is Age-Sensitive Unlike grammar learning, second-language phonological acquisition is subject to a sensitive period.
According to a study by James Flege, similar and not entirely novel sounds are the ones that are affected by age. According to the results of a study by Helen Neville using brain recordings, semantic information seems to be processed in the same way by both speakers of English as a second language and native English speakers throughout life. It seems instead that the neural circuitry we need to process semantic information and learn vocabulary comes on-line early in development and does not change as we mature.
Steven Pinker, a professor of psychology at Harvard University, is also an author of the paper, which appears in the journal Cognition on May 1. Researchers who brought adults and children into a lab, taught them some new elements of language, and then tested them, found that adults were actually better at learning under those conditions. Such studies likely do not accurately replicate the process of long-term learning, Hartshorne says. Following people as they learn a language over many years is difficult and time-consuming, so the researchers came up with a different approach.
They decided to take snapshots of hundreds of thousands of people who were in different stages of learning English. By measuring the grammatical ability of many people of different ages, who started learning English at different points in their life, they could get enough data to come to some meaningful conclusions.
Faced with the challenge of attracting so many test subjects, he set out to create a grammar quiz that would be entertaining enough to go viral. With the help of some MIT undergraduates, Hartshorne scoured scientific papers on language learning to discover the grammatical rules most likely to trip up a non-native speaker.
To entice more people to take the test, he also included questions that were not necessary for measuring language learning, but were designed to reveal which dialect of English the test-taker speaks. After taking the quiz, users were asked to reveal their current age and the age at which they began learning English, as well as other information about their language background.
The researchers ended up with complete data for , people, and once they had this huge amount of data, they had to figure out how to analyze it. The researchers developed and tested a variety of computational models to see which was most consistent with their results, and found that the best explanation for their data is that grammar-learning ability remains strong until age 17 or 18, at which point it drops.
The findings suggest that the critical period for learning language is much longer than cognitive scientists had previously thought. The authors note that adults are still good at learning foreign languages, but they will not be able to reach the level of a native speaker if they begin learning as a teenager or as an adult. The study also opens surprising, new questions, because it suggests that the critical period closes much later than previously thought.
Still unknown is what causes the critical period to end around age The researchers suggest that cultural factors may play a role, but there may also be changes in brain plasticity that occur around that age. After that, you leave your home, maybe you work full time, or you become a specialized university student. All of those might impact your learning rate for any language. Hartshorne now plans to run some related studies in his lab at Boston College, including one that will compare native and non-native speakers of Spanish.
References to the papers cited are available on request. About Latest Posts. Gisela Granena. I have published research on individual cognitive differences in both instructed and naturalistic SLA contexts; aptitude-treatment interactions; task-based language teaching TBLT ; measures of implicit and explicit language knowledge, and the effects of early and late bilingualism on long-term L2 achievement.
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