Читать книгу Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL): A Methodology of Bilingual Teaching - Bernd Klewitz - Страница 20

As a cultural phenomenon, whether language learning is effective and sustainable largely depends on interaction with the respective environment and (school) setting. But of similar importance is the question whether this learning is based on innate capacities (nature) or a result of carefully planned and effectively implemented teaching strategies (nurture). Especially for the purpose of an integrative CLIL methodology it is pertinent to differentiate, at the same time and if necessary, between children and adolescent language acquisition as it will have decisive consequences for any teaching strategy. The Universal Grammar theory and its derivatives had assumed an inherent biological feature as a linguistic mental module, whereas the Fundamental Difference Hypothesis (FDH) breaks a lance for external factors in language learning, especially the assumption that L2 learning contrasts with L1 development in two major aspects: SLA is nonconvergent and unreliable1.

(I) SLA is supposed to be nonconvergent, as domain-specific mechanisms available in early childhood—and part of the UG mental module—allegedly are not accessible for language learning in adulthood. Therefore, adults learning a foreign language need to rely on domain-general problem-solving skills, which develop during a maturation process and are part of dynamic cognitive skills. On the one hand, a fundamental difference between child-language acquisition and L2 learning is as much confirmed as, on the other hand, the existence of a UG—rich or minimalist in the sense of the aforementioned recursion. When Robert Bley-Vroman called this proposal the “Fundamental Difference Hypothesis” (1990), he argued that adult L2 learning would replace the domain-specific acquisition by his own native-language experience and a general abstract problem-solving system.

(II) L2 acquisition is deemed to be unreliable, as the development of knowledge and competence in a second—and further—language differs widely from learner to learner, his or her individual learning strategies and routines and very rarely ends with a nativelike performance. Overall, the answers to three questions are still contentious: Does a UG exist at all? If this is the case, is UG accessible to adult learners at least in part or as a “spin-off” from one’s own mother tongue and its lexis and grammar? When does the age of adult learners’ start? Frequently assumed to be the case for an individual to be above 18 years of age, the additional issue arises where adolescent learners, in other words pupils and younger students, can be placed. And if they are in a transition situation, how does this effect mental language modules (Chomsky) or general problem-solving skills?

In the light of conflicting evidence for positions that argue in favor of the availability or at least some role for UG in second language acquisition and the unresolved questions above, common sense and experience even point to the fact that older learners do not take longer to study another language successfully, but in fact acquire new languages often faster than their younger peers. What can be assumed from our “theory of practice” is threefold: some aspects of L2 features are not learnable from input but depend on former language learning experiences, some are not even part of the learner’s L1 and they are unlikely to have been taught by instructors, especially those competences linked to intercultural or transcultural knowledge.

As far as empirical differences between L1 and L2 (child and adult) acquisition and learning are concerned, a number of observations have been discussed (cf. Meisel: 192 ff, 200 f) and confirm the FDH in several ways. Adults learning a second language have, in contrast to children, a first language to relate to, so that their acquisition process—apart from being less uniform—follows different ways of input (see above) and can rely on prior knowledge and linguistic experiences. These differences are not a matter of controversy but establish themselves in multiple ways:

That the overwhelming majority of adult L2 learners does not attain native-like competences is the most crucial point but not the only one … A further particularity of L2 acquisition is that L2 learners exhibit a much larger range of variation, across individuals and within learners over time, than L1 children. This concerns the rate of acquisition as well as the use of target-deviant constructions and also the level of grammatical competence that they attain (ibid.: 194).

That first and second language acquisition differ fundamentally can also be inferred from the following observations: whereas a child’s brain is still developing, adults have a first language that guides their thinking and speaking; despite high levels of proficiency, L2 learners’ pronunciation mostly remains non-native; when an L2 learner’s proficiency reaches a certain plateau, fossilization occurs—and variations produced by non-native speakers are often similar or the same: failing to produce the third-person-singular “s” in English is a case in point. My conclusion is that an adult learner does not show the same but different potentials for (natural) language acquisition as a child, notwithstanding where the borderlines between a child, adolescent and adult are. Obviously, this would influence second language acquisition in the CLIL classroom where at the onset the typical age of students from Year 7 belongs to a transition period (cf.: Klewitz 2019).

In this light, a conclusion in the Guidebook for Bilingual Parents can be confirmed:

First and second language acquisition differ substantially, probably due to age-related changes of acquisition capacities … Although acquisition remains possible at all ages, some acquisition mechanisms become inaccessible in successive acquisition. Learners intuitively resort to others to replace them (Meisel: 200f).

Even if, like in this conclusion, certain principles of a UG are assumed to exist in some acquisition mechanisms, they might depend on other, external properties such as motivation, focus on study, communicative skills, cultural and age-related influences. Thus, it might yet be possible to reconcile nativist with nurture positions. Taking UG as a biological feature, it seems to be an “endowment” for language acquisition following certain phases in a child’s linguistic development—up to the age of four to five years. L2 principles, on the other hand, point at the abovementioned differences for older language learners. The solution might be to look at the transition from domain-specific mechanisms (nature) to domain-general modules (nurture) that allow for more conscious, effective and time-saving language studies, a quality especially important for CLIL and immersion programs. This transition would be in accordance with constructivist learning theories, observations from the concept of Visible Learning and not least from neurocognitive research, which testifies remarkable plasticity in the cognitive system throughout people’s lives.

Robert Vroman’s FDH tries to account for general characteristics of foreign language learning and his theory can consistently be connected with post-puberty learners, such as in most CLIL strands in schools. L2 acquisition in a classroom setting would resemble the process of general “adult” learning where there is no domain-specific module believed to exist and issues are the role of input, grammatical structures and the transfer of lexical categories. This is particularly important in CLIL programs where the transfer from subject-related concepts from L2 to L1 is one of the guiding learning objectives. Content-based teaching and learning demonstrates that processes of the language faculty—as in UG—are not exclusive to language and that “both native and subsequent languages draw on similar resources in acquisition and processing” (Herschensohn: 260). The “endowment” of the mental module or faculty in language acquisition allegedly declines with age in order to free up neural resources for other operations. Adolescents in CLIL settings would begin to rely instead on problem-solving skills to understand and handle content and consciously acquire L2 lexis and grammatical structures.