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World Traveler
Joined: 29 May 2009
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 Posted: Sat Mar 14, 2015 6:46 pm Post subject: |
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| SeoulNate wrote: |
| Read what you quoted again. Did you read any of it other than the first sentence? |
Yes. I did. Did you bother to click on the first link? You claimed all research in the educational field points to adults being far superior in the ability to learn language. This is clearly false. You are wrong. Admit it.
Generally, it is believed children are better at learning languages (though the exact causes are sometimes disputed). Those claiming adults are better at learning languages are those selling language learning programs to adults. (Saying that is better for business for them.) I'm a hardcore realist. I'd rather see and understand reality as it really is rather than how I wish it to be.
Time spent learning a language as a kid is more beneficial than an equal amount of time learning the language later in life.
Adults cannot learn pronunciation as effortlessly. They can't. Adults cannot distinguish between sounds as effortlessly. Adults cannot pick up grammar as effortlessly.
SeoulNate, can you converse in Korean? Can you or can't you? (I think you can't.)
For adults, the opportunity cost for learning a second language (especially an unrelated language such as Korean) is much, much higher.
Did you notice the lifers' kids are bilingual but they are unable to form simple sentences. Isn't that weird? Who has been in Korea longer? The five year old kid or the father? |
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World Traveler
Joined: 29 May 2009
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| Posted: Sat Mar 14, 2015 7:05 pm Post subject: |
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People reading this thread now: what have you observed from teaching students? Do you feel age is a factor in language acquisition?
Has anyone reading this gotten an MATESOL or a masters in linguistics? (Probably many.) Did anything in your coursework touch on age and language acquisition? If so, what did you learn? |
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happyinhenan
Joined: 01 Feb 2015
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| Posted: Sat Mar 14, 2015 7:35 pm Post subject: |
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| World Traveler wrote: |
| SeoulNate wrote: |
| Read what you quoted again. Did you read any of it other than the first sentence? |
Yes. I did. Did you bother to click on the first link? You claimed all research in the educational field points to adults being far superior in the ability to learn language. This is clearly false. You are wrong. Admit it.
Generally, it is believed children are better at learning languages (though the exact causes are sometimes disputed). Those claiming adults are better at learning languages are those selling language learning programs to adults. (Saying that is better for business for them.) I'm a hardcore realist. I'd rather see and understand reality as it really is rather than how I wish it to be.
Time spent learning a language as a kid is more beneficial than an equal amount of time learning the language later in life.
Adults cannot learn pronunciation as effortlessly. They can't. Adults cannot distinguish between sounds as effortlessly. Adults cannot pick up grammar as effortlessly.
SeoulNate, can you converse in Korean? Can you or can't you? (I think you can't.)
For adults, the opportunity cost for learning a second language (especially an unrelated language such as Korean) is much, much higher.
Did you notice the lifers' kids are bilingual but they are unable to form simple sentences. Isn't that weird? Who has been in Korea longer? The five year old kid or the father? |
From my MA TESOL - in class.
Children are better at picking up language in immersion settings though that becomes less and less effective the older they get, by around the age of nine, they have lost that plasticity in the brain in regards picking up language.
Adults have better learning stratergies and better use of logic in working out how and where parts of language fits into what they want to convey, however, very few adults will ever pick up native like proficiency of language.
To say however, children are more effective than adults at learning language isn't quite true, also children have only a short period of time where their brain plasicity is at that stage where vocabulary can be retained for use at a native like level, however, with regards children, immersion is very important.
Adults, have better language learning strategies and aren't needed to be immersed to learn language (though it does help) - where adults in comparison to children falter is interest and motivation and that is why adult language learning stratergies are doomed to failure more often than not. |
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World Traveler
Joined: 29 May 2009
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| Posted: Sat Mar 14, 2015 10:36 pm Post subject: |
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Good summary.
I talk to so many people who teach (or have taught) English learners of all ages. The general consensus is kids pick up the language much more quickly than adults. |
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happyinhenan
Joined: 01 Feb 2015
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| Posted: Sat Mar 14, 2015 10:50 pm Post subject: |
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| World Traveler wrote: |
Good summary.
I talk to so many people who teach (or have taught) English learners of all ages. The general consensus is kids pick up the language much more quickly than adults. |
They can but it has to be in the right environment and it has to be an immersion environment - an infant can pick up two or three languages simultaneously as long as there is immersion taking place then the child will pick up those languages.
Adults don't need immersion to learn language but they also suffer from a lack of motivation - if a child is hungry then they need to verbalise it whereas an adult does not - they can just go and make a sandwich if they are hungry whereas a toddler cannot. As a child's vocabulary grows - their abilities to pick up language decreases but that is down to brain plasticity rather than motivation.
You are right to an extent - kids up to a certain age can pick up and retain vocabulary and to be able to use it as an L1 speaker but it has to be in the right conditions (immersion) adult learners have better stratergies to learn language and can attain fluency without immersion but need motivation as the aspect which a lot of adult language learners lack. So it isn't 'a child is better than an adult' or the other way round - it is apples and oranges - both adult and child language learning have their plusses and minuses. |
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Kepler
Joined: 24 Sep 2007
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| Posted: Sat Mar 14, 2015 11:18 pm Post subject: |
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"Although older learners are indeed less likely than young children to master an L2, a close examination of studies relating age to language acquisition reveals that age differences reflect differences in the situation of learning rather than in capacity to learn....
"A recent article in the news magazine The Economist typifies this misconception; the author claims in passing that bilingual children in English-only classes 'can absorb the language within months' ('Ron Unz,' 1998, p. 32). Research shows, however, the exact opposite (see Table 1 for a brief review of relevant studies). Significant work in the 1970s (e.g., Snow & Hoefnagel-Höhle, 1977, 1978; and summarized in McLaughlin, 1984, 1985) focusing on learners in an L2 environment showed that older learners are generally faster and more efficient in the initial stages of L2 learning....
"A study by Champagne-Muzar, Schneiderman, & Bourdages (1993) showed that the amount of phonological training before testing had a significant positive effect on the pronunciation of a group of university students who were at the beginning level of French as an L2. This finding, in fact, confirms the results of a series of earlier studies by Neufeld (1979). He demonstrated that adult L2 learners could attain nativelike pronunciation in the target language after experiencing a silent period during which they were asked to listen to L2 speech without speaking it (conditions replicating the learning situation of young children)....
"A recent study by Riney and Flege (1998) shows that living in an environment where the target language is the standard has a positive effect on older L2 learners’ global pronunciation. The authors observed a group of Japanese university students who were initially tested at the beginning of their first year in college and then were retested 42 months later. The pronunciation of the group of students who spent most of the time between the two tests in English-speaking countries improved significantly more than that of the students who remained in Japan....
"Yeni-Komshian, Flege, and Liu (1999) studied the level of perceived pronunciation proficiency in the L1 and L2 of Korean-English bilinguals. Although their results showed a general decrease in L2 pronunciation with age, none of their age groups, including the youngest learners, who had arrived in the United States before age 5, had L2 pronunciation ratings indistinguishable from those of monolingual English speakers....
"Older immigrants are more likely to structure heavily L1 environments for themselves, thus retarding their own L2 exposure and acquisition. Jia and Aaronson (1998), studying Chinese immigrants to the United States, showed that the richness of the English language environment correlated negatively with the richness of the Chinese language environment available to the learners. Obviously, the older arrivals had access to relatively richer Chinese environments (because they could choose their own friends and seek out films, TV, and literacy experiences in Chinese more effectively), and the younger arrivals all reported preferring to talk and read in English by the end of 1 year in the United States....
"Most adult learners of an L2 do, in fact, end up with lower-than-nativelike levels of proficiency. But most adult learners fail to engage in the task with sufficient motivation, commitment of time or energy, and support from the environments in which they find themselves to expect high levels of success."
http://www.lenguasvivas.org/campus/files/0_48/ageandl2learning.pdf
So the different results obtained by adult and child learners may be due more to environment than innate ability. Children's ability to pronounce words in a foreign language is exaggerated. Children have a lot of external motivation to learn a second language (school, teachers, friends) that may continue for years. Adults, on the other hand, can go to a foreign country but largely avoid being immersed in the language of that country. How much time do you spend reading Korean books, watching Korean movies, having Korean conversations, etc.? |
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SeoulNate
Joined: 04 Jun 2010
Location: Hyehwa
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| Posted: Sat Mar 14, 2015 11:41 pm Post subject: |
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| World Traveler wrote: |
research in the educational field points to adults being far superior in the ability to learn language. This is clearly false. You are wrong. Admit it.
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It is not false, research shows that children pick up pronunciation more quickly, but, to be totally honest, there is a severe lack of research on adult acquired pronunciation. There were a few studies done back in the late 80s that tried to study adult pronunciation, concluded that adults learned pronunciation less quickly and then were quickly debunked as they were really studying the amount of time immigrants had lived in the USA rather than the age that they actually started to learn.
There are a crap-ton of people out there, like your CELTA teacher, that like to think/claim children learn language better or that there is some critical period for second language acquisition. The research, as I told you, and as you have found out, points out the complete opposite.
| World Traveler wrote: |
| Generally, it is believed children are better at learning languages (though the exact causes are sometimes disputed). Those claiming adults are better at learning languages are those selling language learning programs to adults. (Saying that is better for business for them.) I'm a hardcore realist. I'd rather see and understand reality as it really is rather than how I wish it to be. |
Well, I will agree with you that adult education books suck. Korean language books suck especially hard. However, that has nothing to do with the ability to learn the language or language aptitude at all.
All of the 'Learn it Quick' type bullshit education that happens in Korea, is just that, bullshit. Want to learn a language? Spend 2,500+ hours studying it and using it. It is as simple as that.
| World Traveler wrote: |
| SeoulNate, can you converse in Korean? Can you or can't you? (I think you can't.) |
TOPIK lvl 3 a few years ago. Not fluent, but I wouldn't expect to be with the amount of time that I have spent learning it. I'll be the first to admit that I really haven't had much motivation to go beyond that, and it has probably regressed in the past year and a half now that I have been more focused on academic writing and editing.
| World Traveler wrote: |
| Has anyone reading this gotten an MATESOL or a masters in linguistics? (Probably many.) Did anything in your coursework touch on age and language acquisition? If so, what did you learn? |
Have both. HappyinHenan summarized it pretty well, but generally the research sounds something like this:
While most of the older research and educational theories claimed that children learn language better, most modern research points out that adults are actually, aside from pronunciation, superior language learners.
Is it possible to find some research that claims children are better? Probably, so I guess my emphasis on all was a bit strong (all peer reviewed material in a quality publication probably would have been better). However, I'm sure if you searched you could also find published material that claimed to have a study where TV was the best educator in the world, which we all know isn't true.
| World Traveler wrote: |
| For adults, the opportunity cost for learning a second language (especially an unrelated language such as Korean) is much, much higher. |
Of course it is, but that does not have anything to do with language acquisition. However, it does answer your next question fairly well.
| World Traveler wrote: |
| Did you notice the lifers' kids are bilingual but they are unable to form simple sentences. Isn't that weird? Who has been in Korea longer? The five year old kid or the father? |
While there is a severe lack of material on bilingual learning, most of the research points to it being far closer to first LA, rather than second LA, which we have already established as being a superior method of learning. There is a difference between learning your first and second language, and that difference leads to different learning styles being more appropriate for teachers to teach adults and children in different ways when they are learning their second language. |
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World Traveler
Joined: 29 May 2009
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| Posted: Sun Mar 15, 2015 1:16 am Post subject: |
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| happyinhenan wrote: |
| So it isn't 'a child is better than an adult' or the other way round - it is apples and oranges - both adult and child language learning have their plusses and minuses. |
Which would be more advantageous overall, though? It seems like it'd be quite the coincidence if both situations happened to be equally advantageous for acquiring language. |
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World Traveler
Joined: 29 May 2009
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| Posted: Sun Mar 15, 2015 1:23 am Post subject: |
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| SeoulNate wrote: |
| I guess my emphasis on all was a bit strong (all peer reviewed material in a quality publication probably would have been better). |
Wait so now all "quality" publications show adults are better at learning languages?
Are you sure about that?
The first journal publication I came across on Google is this:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2920538
(It is good quality enough for you?)
Before puberty is better, man. I thought that was common knowledge. I'm shocked you believe otherwise. |
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happyinhenan
Joined: 01 Feb 2015
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| Posted: Sun Mar 15, 2015 1:49 am Post subject: |
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| World Traveler wrote: |
| happyinhenan wrote: |
| So it isn't 'a child is better than an adult' or the other way round - it is apples and oranges - both adult and child language learning have their plusses and minuses. |
Which would be more advantageous overall, though? It seems like it'd be quite the coincidence if both situations happened to be equally advantageous for acquiring language. |
It just isn't so simple, it would be like 'who is the better runner, a marthon runner or a 100 meter sprinter' though both are runners, the training and desired outcomes are totally different.
First language accqusition (FLA) and second language accqusition (SLA) are two separate - but related - branches of linguistics. Most human beings acquire a FLA as the motivations and conditions as well as the plasticity of the brain are ripe. But if that child is not immersed in a particular language by the age of around four then their language abilities are retarded significantly.
Adult second language learners can pick up a second language (of their choice) in a straightforward manner as long as they can devote the time as well as keeping their motivation levels high enough, though immersion helps, they don't need immersion to learn a language fluently and are better able to read and write in a second language - moreso than a child. So, there isn't a straightforward answer to it, it all depends.  |
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happyinhenan
Joined: 01 Feb 2015
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| Posted: Sun Mar 15, 2015 2:10 am Post subject: |
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| A very interesting sidestory to this is the case of the children of Jim Rogers children, Jim Rogers - billionaire whateverheis CEO who took his family to Singapore so his young daughters could become fluent in Mandarin Chinese has found that though his children are becoming fluent in Mandarin Chinese, their English is also changing to Singlish and he and his wife have had to be very vigilant to make sure their daughters English doesn't regress because the friends of the Rogers children speak Singlish and they pick that up. So that plasticity of the brain can work both ways in children and language acqusition. If the Rogers were lax about their children acquiring Singlish and thus losing their NA English speaking abilities then that would be very counter productive in what they are trying to achieve. |
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World Traveler
Joined: 29 May 2009
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happyinhenan
Joined: 01 Feb 2015
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| Posted: Sun Mar 15, 2015 4:34 am Post subject: |
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Because there is more motivation to learn on the part of the children.
If an adult isn't motivated to learn a language then they will learn very little.
Jim Rogers isn't motivated to learn Chinese because he doesn't have to.
Highly motivated adults learn more vocabulary and are better at reading and writing than children are.
Also, in a lot of this thread, you have confused FLA and SLA which are totally different approaches to language learning. |
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SeoulNate
Joined: 04 Jun 2010
Location: Hyehwa
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| Posted: Sun Mar 15, 2015 5:07 pm Post subject: |
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| World Traveler wrote: |
| SeoulNate wrote: |
| I guess my emphasis on all was a bit strong (all peer reviewed material in a quality publication probably would have been better). |
Wait so now all "quality" publications show adults are better at learning languages?
Are you sure about that?
The first journal publication I came across on Google is this:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2920538
(It is good quality enough for you?)
Before puberty is better, man. I thought that was common knowledge. I'm shocked you believe otherwise. |
You realize that this study has been picked apart and debunked dozens of times? This is exactly the study I was referring to, which was based on another BS study done by Patowski (1980).
If you want to see the results, look up a study done by DeKeyser (2000) where he tried to replicate the results and ending up finding zero correlation between the age of learning and fluency in the language. The original studies done by Patowski and Johnson/Newport were heavily flawed and failed to take into account time at all. |
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SeoulNate
Joined: 04 Jun 2010
Location: Hyehwa
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| Posted: Sun Mar 15, 2015 5:09 pm Post subject: |
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| happyinhenan wrote: |
Also, in a lot of this thread, you have confused FLA and SLA which are totally different approaches to language learning. |
Amen. |
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