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The increased pace of research on first language acquisition in the 60s and 70s attracted the attention not only of linguists
of all kinds but also of educators in various language-related fields. Today the applications of research findings in first
language acquisition are widespread. In language arts education, for example, it is not uncommon to find teacher trainess studying
first language acquisition, particularly acquisition after age 5, in order to improve their understanding of the task of teaching
language speaker to native speakers. In foreign language education most standard text and curricula now include some introductory material
in first language acquisition. The reason for this are clear: We have all observed children acquiring their first language easily and
well, yet the learning of second language, particularly in an education setting, often meets with great difficulty and sometimes failure.
We should therefore able to learn something from a systematic study of that first language learning experience.
The statements tend to represent the views of those who were dominated by a behavioristic theory of language in which the first language
acquisition process is viewed as consisting of rote practice, habit formation, shaping, overlearning, reinforcement, conditioning, association,
stimulus and response, and who therefore assumed that the second language learning process involves the same constructs. There are flaws in each
view. Sometimes the flaw is in the assumption behind the statement about first language learning and sometimes it is in the analogy or implication
that is drawn; sometimes it is in both.
Types of Comparison and Contrast At the very least, one needs to approach comparison procedure by first considering the differences between children and adults. It is, in one sense, rather illogical to compare the first language acquisition of child with the second language acquisition of an adult. It is much more logical to compare first and second language learning in children or to compare second language learning in children and adults. It is reasonable, therefore, to view the latter type of comparison within a matrix of possible comparisons. Figure 3-1 represents four possible categories to compare, defined by age and type of acquisition. Note that the vertical shaded line between the "child" and "adult" is "fuzzy" to allow for varying definitions of adulthood.
Cell A1 is clearly representative of an abnormal situation. There have been few recorded instances of an adult acquiring a first language.
Accounts of "wolf children" and other instances of severe retardation fall into this category. Since it is not imperative at this time to deal
with abnormal or pathological cases of language acquisition, we can ignore category A1.
In the first type of comparison, holding age constant, one is manipulating the language variable. It is important to remember, however, that a 3-year-old and a 9-year-old - both children by definition - exhibit vast cognitive, affective and physical differences, and that comparisons of all three types must be treated with caution when varying ages of children are being considered. In the second type of comparison one is manipulating the differences between children and adults. such comparisons are, for obvious reasons, the most fruitful in yielding analogies for adult second language classroom instruction. In the third type of comparison, of course, both variables are being manipulated. Most of traditional comparisons have been of type 3, and such comparisons are difficult to make because of the emormous cognitive, affective, and physical differences between children and adults. That is not to say that type 3 comparisons ought to be avoided entirely; some valuable insights are to be gained from such comparisons. The Critical Period Hypothesis
A biologically determined period of life when language can be acquired. The critical period hypothesis claims that there is such a
biological timetable. Initially, the notion of a critical period was connected only to first language acquisition. Pathological studies of
children who acquired their first language, or aspects thereof, became fuel for arguments of biologically determined predispositions, timed
for release, which would wane if the correct environmental stimuli were not present at the crucial stage. One of the most interesting areas of inquiry in second language acquisition has been study of the function of the brain in the process of acquisition. There is evidence in neurological research that as the human brain matures certain functions are assigned - or "lateralized" - to the left hemisphere of the brain and certain other functions to the right hemisphere. Intellectual, logical, and analytical functions appear to be largely located in the left hemisphere while the right hemisphere controls functions related to emotional and social needs. Language function appear to be controlled mainly in the left hemisphere, though there is a good deal of conflicting evidence. While question about how language is lateralized in the brain are interesting indeed, a more crucial question for second language researchers has centered on when lateralization takes place, and how that lateralaziation process affects language acquisition. Eric Lenneberg(1967) and others suggested that lateralization is a slow process that begins around the age of 2 and is completed around poberty. During this time the child is neurologically assigning functions little by little to one side of the brain or the other; included in these functions, of course, is language. And it has been found that children up to the age of puberty who suffer injury to the left hemisphere are able to relocalize linguistic functions to the right hemisphere, to "relearn" their first language with relatively little impairment. Thomas Scovel(1969) extended these findings to propose a relationship between lateralization and second langauge acquisition. He suggested that the plasticity of the brain prior to puberty enables children to acquire not only their first language but also a second language, and the possibilty it is the very accomplishment of lateralziation that makes it difficult for people to be able ever again to easily acquire fluent control of a second language, or at least to acquire it with Alexander Guiora et al.(1972a) call "authentic" (nativelike) pronunciation. While Lenneberg(1976) contended that lateralization is complete around puberty, Norman Geschwind(1970), among others, suggested a much earlier age. Stephen Krashen(1973) believed that the development of lateralization may be complete around age 5. Krashen's suggestion does not grossly conflict with research on first language acquisition if one considers "fluency" in the first language to be achieved by age 5. Scovel(1984:1) cautioned against asssuming with Krashen, that lateralization is complete by age 5. "One must be careful to distinguish between 'emergence' of lateralization (at birth, but quite evident at 5) and 'completion' (only evident at about puberty)." If lateralization is not completed until puberty, then one can still construct arguments for a critical period based on lateralization. Obler (1981:58) notes that in second language learning there is significant
right hemisphere participation and that "this participation is particularly active during the early stages of learning the second language."
An issue closely related to strictly neurological considerations is the role of the psychomotor coordination of the "speech
muscles" in second language acquisition, or, more commonly, accent. We can appreciate the fact that given the existence
of several hunderd muscles that are used in the articulation of human speech (throat, larynx, mouth,
lips, tongue, and other muscles), a tremendous degree of muscular control is required to achieve the fluency
of a native speaker of a langauge. It is important to remeber in all these considerations that pronunciation of a language is not by any means the sole criterion for acquisition, nor is it really the most important one. I like to call this the "Hennry Kissinger effect" in honor of the former U.S. Secretary of State whose German accent was so noticeable yet who was clearly more eloquent than the large majority of native speakers of American English. The acquisition of the communicative and functional purposes of language is far more important. Scovek(1988:186) captures the spirit of this way of looking at second language acquisition:
Human cognition develpes rapidly throughout the first 16 years of life and less rapidly after adulthood. Some of these changes are
critical, others are more gradual and difficult to detect. Jean Piaget outlines the course of intellectual
development in a child through various stages:
these stages with a crucial change from the concrete operational stage to the formal operational stage around the
age of 11. The most critical stage for a consideration of first and second language acquisition appears to occur, in
Piaget's outline, at puberty. It is here that a person becomes capable of abstraction, of formal thinking which
transcends concrete experience and direct perception.
The lateralization hypothesis may provide another key to cognitive differences
between child and adult language acquisition. As the child matures into adulthood, the left hemisphere(which controls the analytical
and intellectual functions)becomes more dominant than the right hemisphere(which controls the emotional functions).
The final consideration in the cognitive domain is the distinction that Ausbel makes between
rote and meaningful learning. Ausbel notes that people of all ages have little
need for rote, mechanistic learning that is not related to existing knowledge and experience. Rather most items are acquired
by meaningful learning, by anchoring and relating new items and experiences to knowledge that exists in the cognitive framework.
It is myth to contend that children are good rote learners, that they make good use of meaningless repetition and mimicking.
Human beings are emotional creatures. At the heart of all thought and meaning ana action is emotion. As "intellectual" as we
would like to think we are, we are influenced by our emotions.
The affective domain includes many factors: empathy, self-esteem, extroversion, inhibition,
imitation, anxiety, attitudes. Some of these may seem at first rather far removed from language learning, but when
you consider the pervasive nature of language, any affective factor can conceivably be relevant to second language learning.
A case in point is the role of egocentricity in human development. Very young children are totally egocentric.
The world revolves about them, and they see all events as focusing on themselves. Small babies at first do not even distinguish a seperation
between themselves and the world around them. A rattle held in baby's hand, for example, is simply an inseperable extension of the baby
as long as it is grasped; when the baby drops it or loses sight of it, it ceases to exist. As children grow older they become more aware
of themselves, more self-conscious as they seek both to define and understand their self identity. In preadolescence children develope
an acute consciousness of themselves as seperate and identifiable entities but ones which, in their still-wavering insecurity, need protecting.
They therefore develope inhibitions about this self-identity, fearing to expose to much self-doubt.
Alexander Guiora, a researcher in the study of personality variables in second language
learning, proposed what he calle the language ego (Guiora et al. 1972b)to account for the identity of a person develops in reference
to the language he or she speaks. Guiora suggested that the language ego may account for the difficulties that
adults have in learning a second language. The child's ego is dynamic and this stage does not pose a substantial "threat" or inhibition
to the ego and adaptation is made relatively easily as long as there are not undue confounding sociocultural factors such as, for example,
a damaging attitude toward language or language group at a young age. However, the simultaneous physical, emotional, and cognitive
changes of puberty give rise to a defensive mechanism in which the language ego becomes protective and defensive.
It is no wonder, then, that the acquisition of a new language ego is an enormous undertaking, not only for
young adolescents but also for an adult who has grown comfortable and secure in his or her own identity and who possesses inhibitions
that serve as a wall of defensive protection arount the ego. Another affectively related variable deserves are the role of attitudes in language learning. From the growing
body of literature on attitudes, it seems clear that negative attitudes can affect success in learning language. Very young children, however,
who are not develped enough cognitively to possess "attitudes" toward races, cultures, ethnic groups, classes of people, and languages are
unaffected. Finally, peer pressure is a particularly important variable in Type 2 and Type 3 comparisons. The
peer pressure children encounter in language learning is quite unlike what the adult experiences. Children usually have strong constraints
upon them to conform. They are told in words, thoughts, and actions that they had better "be like the rest of the kids." Adults tend to
tolerate linguistic differences more than children, and therefore errors in speech are more easily excused.
It is clear that children learning two languages simultaneously acquire them by the use of similar strategies. Ther are, in essence,
learning two languages, and the key to success is in distinguishing separate contexts for two languages. (People who learn second
language in such separate context are referred to as coordinate bilinguals; they have two meaning systems, as opposed to
compound bilingual who have one meaning system from which both languages operate.)
Adults, more cognitively secure, appear to operate from
the solid foundation of the first language and thus manifest more interference. But it was pointed out earlier that adults, too, manifest
errors not unlike some of the errors children make, the result of creative perception of the second language and an attempt to discover
its rules apart from the rules of first language. The first language, however, may be more readily used to bridge gaps that the adult learner
cannot fill by generalization within the second language. In this case wedo well to remember that the first language can be facilitating factor,
and not just an interfering factor.
In The Classroom: The Audiolingual Method
In the first half of this century, the Direct Method did not take hold in United States the way it did in Europe. The highly
influential Coleman Report of 1929 (Coleman 1929) had persuaded foreign language teachers that it was impractical to teach oral
skills, and that reading should become the focus. Thus schools returned in the 1930s and 1940s to Grammar translation, "the
handmaiden if reading" (Bowen et al. 1985).
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