The myth factor

I did some searching on the internet and found an article on myths in second language acquisition. You can find this article in many places on the internet, so I will give you two links to it just in case one goes dead. Link 1 and Link 2.

Here are the myths and statements about each one that I found interesting:

MYTH 1:
CHILDREN LEARN SECOND LANGUAGES QUICKLY AND EASILY

The requirements to communicate as a child are quite different from the requirements to communicate as an adult. The child's constructions are shorter and simpler, and vocabulary is relatively small when compared with what is necessary for adults to speak at the same level of competence in a second language as they do in their first language. The child does not have to learn as much as an adult to achieve competence in communicating. Hence there is the illusion that the child learns more quickly than the adult, whereas when controlled research is conducted, in both formal and informal learning situations, results typically indicate that adult (and adolescent) learners perform better than young children.

MYTH 2:
THE YOUNGER THE CHILD, THE MORE SKILLED IN ACQUIRING A SECOND LANGUAGE

The research suggests that younger children do not necessarily have an advantage over older children and, because of their cognitive and experiential limitations when compared to older children, are actually at a disadvantage in how quickly they learn a second language--other things being equal.

MYTH 3:
THE MORE TIME STUDENTS SPEND IN A SECOND LANGUAGE CONTEXT, THE QUICKER THEY LEARN THE LANGUAGE

Over the length of the program, children in bilingual classes, where there is exposure to the home language and to English, have been found to acquire English language skills equivalent to those acquired by children who have been in English-only programs.

MYTH 4:
CHILDREN HAVE ACQUIRED A SECOND LANGUAGE ONCE THEY CAN SPEAK IT

The Canadian educator, Jim Cummins (1980a), cited research evidence from a study of 1,210 immigrant children in Canada indicating that it takes these children much longer (approximately five to seven years) to master the disembedded cognitive language skills required for the regular English curriculum than to master oral communicative skills. Cummins and others speak of the "linguistic facade,"whereby children appear to be fluent in a language because of their oral skills but have not mastered the more disembedded and decontextualized aspects of the language.

MYTH 5:
ALL CHILDREN LEARN A SECOND LANGUAGE IN THE SAME WAY

Some children are outgoing and sociable and learn the second language quickly because they want to be like their English-speaking peers. They do not worry about mistakes, but use limited resources to generate input from native speakers. Other children are shy and quiet. They learn by listening and by attending to what is happening and being said around them. They say little, for fear of making a mistake. Nonetheless, research shows that both types of learners can be successful second language learners. In classrooms where group work is stressed, the socially active child is more likely to be successful; in the traditional, teacher-oriented classroom, children who are "active listeners" have been found to be more successful than highly sociable children.


In my next entry, I would like to reveal what I believe is the real reason why children seem to pick up native accents whereas older learners typically have foreign accents.

Vox15.mp3

You are what you practice

There's a saying in English that goes, "You are what you eat." However, I don't write about food here. I write about languages. So I have to modify that saying to, "You are what you practice." There is a saying that goes, "Practice makes perfect" but I didn't coin that one, so that's why I have to make up my own. My saying is, "You are what you practice." Practice is important in language learning. If you want to become an expert, you cannot just stop practicing when you become perfect. You must keep practicing, past perfection. That's what this article says. But the most interesting thing the article says is, experts "attribute their success to practice and to the ability to maintain concentration during long practice sessions (Ericsson, 1996)." So, you can see that concentration is a very valuable skill to develop! I wrote a little about how important concentration is, a month and a half ago. I said I was going to work on my ability to concentrate. Well, I still find my attention wandering quite easily. Concentration is really difficult to sustain! It's hard to not think about something else and to just focus on one sentence for a minute or two. Some other idea or concern will just pop into my head and I find myself thinking about that instead. But I know... I can feel that while I'm concentrating on that one sentence and listening to every word clearly, that it is really sinking into my brain. I just need to keep working on the ability to shut everything else out and stay focused. This is really hard to do in the listening-only stage. I think in the next stage it won't be as difficult. The imitation stage. I'll be very busy imitating the sentence I'm hearing and working on the rythm. I don't think there will be much room for my mind to wander.

Vox14.mp3

The language not taken

Today, I was inspired by a discussion on how to learn any language dot com where a new member is trying to choose between two difficult languages. I remembered a poem which you can read here and decided to write my own version of the poem. Instead of choosing between two roads, my poem is about choosing between two languages.

The Language Not Taken

Two languages emerged as choices,

And sorry I could not learn both

And be one speaker with two voices.

I listened to one as long as I could

Until my curiosity outlived its growth;

Then listened to the other, just as interesting,

And having perhaps the better sound,

Because it was tonal and lacked complexity;

Though, the writing system was profound

The difficulty was really about the same,

And both languages with equal fame

With few non-native speakers able to master.

Oh, I saved the first for another semester!

But knowing how difficult languages are

I doubted that I could have learned any faster.

I shall be interpreting this with a sigh

Sometime long, long from now:

Two languages emerged as options, and I —

I learned the one more difficult to try,

And that has made all the difference.

Vox13.mp3