Age and Acquisition

1. In your opinion which 3 of the 7 myths are of importance to dispel? Why?

• Imitation: It tells that a child imitates everything. I think this is important to dispel because if a child would learn by imitation he only would learn simply speech.

• Speech development: It is related to the natural order myth; it tells that a child first develops listening, then speaking, then reading, then writing. I think this is a myth because people can learn according to their skills. They can read first and then listen.

• Translation: It tells that children shouldn’t translate words. This isn’t true because children do not know many words in their first language, it is more complicated to understand a second language if they do not relate it to their first language.

2. Refer and explain 3 out of the 5 topics from the cognitive psychologist Ausubel.

·         Adult learning a foreign language could, with their full cognitive capacities, benefit from deductive presentations of grammar: It means that an adult has the mental capacity of think about the rules and make his own conclusions.

·         The native language of the learner is not just an interfering factor-it can facilitate learning a second language: It means that if the L1 and L2 are similar the learner would be benefit by those rules or sounds (Positive transfer)

·         Students could be overwhelmed by language spoken at its “natural speed”, and they, like children, could benefit from more deliberative speech from the teacher: It means that for students it is difficult to understand a language by its native speakers because they speak so fast. In the other hand, the teacher always uses simply forms, and provides the students comprehensible input.

3. Explain the possible comparisons and contrasts between children and adult acquisition.

There are three types of comparisons and contrast:

1.       - First and second language acquisition in children, holding age constant: One is manipulating the language variable. However it is important to remember that a 2 year old and an 11 year old exhibit vast cognitive, affective and physical differences.

2. - Second language acquisition in children and adults, holding second language acquisition constant: One is holding language constant and manipulating the differences between children and adults. Some comparisons are the most fruitful in yielding analogies for adult second language classroom instructions.

3. - Firsts language acquisition in children and second language acquisition in adults: This comparison manipulates both variables. _Such comparison must be made only with extreme caution because of the enormous cognitive, affective and physical differences between children and adults.

4. Refer to the CPH according to: Lenneberg (1967) and Bickerton (1981) “The over the hill possibility”

Lenneberg (1967) and Bickerton (1981) made strong statements in favor of a critical period before which and after which certain abilities do not develop. They claimed that the critical period is such a biological timetable. They also argued that it is a period of life when language can be acquired more easily. By the age of 12 or 13 you are “over the hill” when it comes to the possibility of successful second language learning (the role of accents as a component of success)

5. Discuss three points about the hemispheric lateralization.

Left hemisphere seems to control intellectual, logical and analytic functions including language functions, while right hemisphere controls functions related to emotional and social needs. According to Thomas Scovel, this lateralization can be applied to the second language acquisition.

6. What do we mean by biological accent-related 

Thomas Scovel cited evidence for a sociobiological critical period in various species of mammals and birds. He concluded that human beings’ native accents may be genetics left-over just like animals.  Walsh and Diller concluded that different aspects of a second language and learned optimally at different ages: Lower-order processes are dependent on early maturing and less adaptive macro neural circuits, while higher-order language functions are more dependent on late mature neural circuits. 

7. What is the role of the right hemisphere in learning a L2? 

Olbers noted in second language learning, there is significant right hemisphere participation especially at early stages. Genesee concluded that there may be greater right hemisphere involvement in language processing in bilinguals who acquire their language late relative to their first language and in bilinguals.