Age and acquisition

By: T. Mari

We have all observed children acquiring their first language easily and well, than individuals learning a second language, particularly in an educational setting can meet with great difficulty and sometimes failure.

First language acquisition starts in very  early childhood, but second language acquisition can  happen in childhood, early or late, as well as in adulthood.

According to H.H Stern here are some arguments to take into consideration when we talk about first and second language acquisition. The first one, practice, practices again and again; also language learning is a matter of imitation. They start by separating sounds, then words, then sentences. Moreover the speech development is based on listening and speaking. Reading and writing are advanced stages of language development. Natural order for 1st or 2nd language development is listening, speaking, reading and writing. There is no translation; a small child just uses language, formal grammar.

According to    Ausubel and the Audiolingual Method he stated that adults learning a foreign language could, with all their full capacities. Also the native language of the learner in not just an interfering factor, it can facilitate second language learning. The written form of the language could be beneficial.

A critical period for language acquisition is a biologically determined period of life when language can be acquired most easily and beyond which time language is difficult to acquire. The Critical Period Hypothesis claims that   there is a biological timetable.

There is evidence in neurological research that as the human brain matures certain other functions to the right hemisphere. Intellectual, logical, and analytic functions appear to largely locate in the left hemisphere, while the right hemisphere controls functions related to emotional and social needs. Language functions appear to be controlled mainly in the left hemisphere. 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.

Children can learn two languages simultaneously y the use of similar strategies. To sum up, they are learning to first languages at the same time. Therefore, it is important to make the difference between the 2 environments   school / home .Coordinate bilingual people learning the language in to separate contexts 2 meaning systems Compound bilinguals: 1 meaning system for both contexts In general children to not have problems   mixing up languages According to Cook develop a code switching when they insert words, phrases, of 1 language into the other.