The Younger the Better in English learning practice Essay

The Younger the Better in English learning practice - Essay Example At the same time, parents believe that ‘the younger the better’ when learning a second language. They spend a great deal of money to send their children to English speaking countries to enhance language ability while the learners are still young. However, there have been many arguments about the appropriate language learning period. Unlike the general thoughts of many people, some researchers have suggested adults have a better advantage in language learning. In this paper, both views of language acquisition will be introduced. First, the paper will go through research cases and researchers’ suggestions supporting ‘the younger the better’. This will be followed by studies suggesting adults' second language acquisition is more advantageous than young learners. ... It is crucial for language learners to learn a language before puberty. Language acquisition which takes place after puberty is qualitatively different from the acquisition which takes place before puberty due to cerebral lateralization of function in the brain. In the 60s, there were not many studies done to prove the hypothesis. His claim was limited to the suggestion of the ‘critical period’ of first language acquisition. He left further research about second language acquisition to other researchers. Since Lenneberg’s (1967) study of the ‘critical period’, research concerning his work began to get much of the spotlight. Several researchers supported his study (Newport, 1990). One of the most notable works was from Curtiss(1977) about 13 year old girl named Genie. Genie was found by neighbour in Los Angeles when she was 13. She had been isolated from linguistic, social, environmental input until she was found at the age approximately at the end of the puberty. There existed no linguistic formal information when she was found, yet, she had the average intelligence of her age group. She started learning her first language at thirteen years of age. The research implications were incredible. Her performance was similar to that of average 13 year old child but she had a difficult time applying language to real life situations. Also, she needed more than five months to accomplish certain step of linguistic competence while other children of her linguistic age were able to complete the steps within 2 to 6 weeks. Even though she had five years of special training, Genie was able to speak on her own initiative and was able to understand certain degrees of complicated sentences, her