[EDLING:2406] Learning A Language: A Child's Edge

[Francis M Hult]

Via ILR...

> The New York Times
> 
> March 4, 2007
> 
> The Basics
> 
> 
> Learning a Language: A Child's Edge 
> 
> 
> By FERNANDA SANTOS
> <http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/s/fernanda_s
> antos/index.html?inline=nyt-per> 
> 
> Any adult who sets out to learn a foreign language knows how frustrating
> it can be to make sense of the simplest rules of semantics and syntax.
> Words are hard to remember; phrases, hard to come by. The mere task of
> pronunciation can be a battle for control: your brain tells your tongue
> to vibrate against the roof of your mouth, but your tongue rolls on
> itself instead.
> 
> As more immigrants enroll in publicly financed English classes, they are
> discovering that the frustrations of long waiting lists, crowded
> classrooms and missing textbooks are often dwarfed by the challenge of
> learning the language of their new home.
> 
> "I think this is one of the most difficult things I've ever done," Maria
> de Oliveira, 26, an immigrant from Brazil, said in her native
> Portuguese. She lives in Yonkers and has been taking English classes
> since mid-January. 
> 
> The fact is, it is hard for adults to learn a new language, much harder
> than it is for their children. But there is no simple answer as to why
> that is the case. 
> 
> In 1959, the neurosurgeons Wilder Penfield and Lamar Roberts tried to
> answer the question. They concluded that there was a critical period,
> ending around puberty, when the brain, with proper stimuli, is best
> suited to learn a language. After that, the task becomes much more
> difficult. 
> 
> Their theory remains controversial, and neuroscientists and linguists
> have broadened the inquiry. They say social and psychological factors
> also are at play. 
> 
> Children who must learn a new language have certain advantages over
> adults beyond biology, researchers say, starting with the fact that they
> are not preoccupied with paying the bills or figuring out what's for
> dinner. Their minds are clear and relaxed.
> 
> By contrast, said D. Bradford Marshall, an expert in language
> acquisition at Harvard, "adult immigrants are thrust into a society they
> don't understand, which only compounds their anxiety."
> 
> To succeed, he said, adults must have self-confidence, a strong desire
> to learn and a willingness to stick with it. 
> 
> Another advantage immigrant children enjoy is that they are often
> surrounded by native speakers, in schools or on playgrounds, while
> adults tend to gravitate toward people who speak the same language as
> they do. That safety net becomes their greatest barrier to full exposure
> to the language of their new country, according to Dr. Michael
> Merzenich, professor of neuroscience at University of California
> <http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/u/uni
> versity_of_california/index.html?inline=nyt-org> , San Francisco.
> 
> Dr. Merzenich has also theorized that the brains of people who speak but
> one language become progressively preoccupied with that language as they
> grow older, making it harder for them to absorb a new language.