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Age contrasts in the learning of language‐relevant materials: some challenges to critical period hypothesis
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In this paper, a Hawaiian lesson was given to 182 public school children (61, 73, and 48 from grades 4, 7-8, and 11, respectively) and a test was composed of syntactic and semantic tasks each assessed by multiple choice and metalinguistic means with items demanding either rote memory, word rearrangement, or rule application.Abstract:
In order to test the claim of diminished capacity for language learning at puberty, a Hawaiian lesson was given to 182 public school children (61, 73, and 48 from grades 4, 7-8, and 11, respectively). Retention of material was evaluated immediately and after a week. The test was composed of syntactic and semantic tasks each assessed by multiple choice and metalinguistic means, with items demanding either rote memory, word rearrangement, or rule application. Repeated measures analyses of variance of second-week performance covaried for initial scores, showed Grade 4 to be poorer than both older groups, and Grade 7-8 to exceed Grade 11 on some tasks. Stepwise multiple regressions for each group revealed the consistent importance of English reading level and differing additional predictions in the three groups. It was concluded that second-language learning capacities cannot be defined in terms of age alone.read more
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Cognitive Development
TL;DR: FLAVELL as mentioned in this paper found that cognitive development might appear more general-stage-like than many of us believed, if only we knew how and where to look, and that mental heterogeneity may occur because human beings have evolved to cope with certain cognitive tasks earlier or more easily than others.
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Some Problems with Falsification: An Illustration From SLA Research.
TL;DR: This article reviewed some philosophical literature which argues that falsification is difficult, if not impossible to achieve, and made an argument that exploration of constructs to generate new formulations is a more productive approach to SLA theory building.
Factors affecting the learning of English as a second language macroskills among Tongan secondary students
TL;DR: The study looked at learning English language macroskills from a multiple interdisciplinary perspective taking into consideration linguistic, psycholinguistic, sociolinguistic factors and classroom and bilingual education perspectives.
Second Languages in the Primary School: The Age Factor Dimension.
TL;DR: Evidence suggests early L2 exposure increases chances of ultimately attaining a high proficiency level in that language, but that in formal educational situations any long-term advantage will be slow to manifest itself and may not do so at all unless articulation between primary and secondary programs is properly managed.
The monolingual native speaker: not a norm, but still a necessity
TL;DR: It is maintained that three major areas of investigation would be seriously compromised if monolingual native speakers could not be used in comparative research with bilingual non-native speakers.
References
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Biological Foundations of Language
TL;DR: The coming of language occurs at about the same age in every healthy child throughout the world as mentioned in this paper, strongly supporting the concept that genetically determined processes of maturation, rather than env...
Journal ArticleDOI
The Biological Foundations of Language
TL;DR: The coming of language occurs at about the same age in every healthy child throughout the world, strongly supporting the concept that genetically determined processes of maturation, rather than environs-based processes, are responsible for this development.
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A sensitive period for the acquisition of a nonnative phonological system
TL;DR: The authors found that age at arrival was a strong predictor of degree of accent, while length of stay had very little effect, and suggested that a sensitive period exists for the acquisition of a nonnative phonological system.
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The Cross-Lingual Dimensions of Language Proficiency: Implications for Bilingual Education and the Optimal Age Issue.
TL;DR: This paper argued that a dimension of cognitive/academic language proficiency (CALP) can be empirically distinguished from interpersonal communicative skills such as accent and oral fluency in both Li and L2, and that cognitive/ academic proficiencies in both L 1 and L 2 are manifestations of the same underlying dimension.
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Age, Rate and Eventual Attainment in Second Language Acquisition.
TL;DR: This article found that older children acquire faster than younger children (in early stages of morphological and syntactic development where time and exposure are held constant) and that acquirers who begin natural exposure to second languages during childhood generally achieve higher second language proficiency than those beginning as adults.