Second Language Learning in the Early School Years: Trends and Contexts

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Victoria A. Murphy. Second Language Learning in the Early School Years: Trends and Contexts

Acknowledgements

Preface

1. A typology of contexts

Introduction

Age and L2 learning in primary school children

A typology of L2 contexts

Theoretical approaches underpinning differences in L2 outcomes

Educational implications

Conclusions

2. Bilingual development in young children

Introduction

Defining bilingualism

Bilingual speech processing

Comparisons with monolingual development

Differentiation of the two linguistic systems

Code-switching

Cross-linguistic influence

Dominance

Cognitive effects of bilingualism

The age issue

Educational implications

Conclusions

3. Heritage language learners

Introduction

Who are ‘heritage language learners’? The problem of definition

Sociopolitical context, educational policy, and identity

Incomplete acquisition?

The age issue

Educational implications

Conclusions

4. Minority language learners

Introduction

Vocabulary development in minority language learners

Literacy development in minority language learners

Listening development in minority language learners

Bilingual education and minority language learners

Types of bilingual programme

The age issue

Educational implications

Conclusions

5. Majority language learners: immersion education

Introduction

Immersion programmes

Pedagogical issues

Cognitive effects of immersion

Two-way bilingual programmes

Content and language integrated learning

Immersion gone global

The age issue

Educational implications

Conclusions

6. Instructed foreign language learning in primary school

Introduction

Policy

Provision

Outcomes

The age issue

Educational implications

Conclusions

7. Trends, implications, and conclusions

Introduction

Theoretical assumptions regarding age and L2 learning

Trends across contexts

Educational implications and conclusions

Bibliography

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I have hugely enjoyed the process of preparing this volume, and have learned a tremendous amount. I have been so inspired by all the exciting research that is being conducted around the world addressing key issues in the area of child L2 learning and I feel very privileged to be a part of such a vibrant research community.

Most things worth doing are rarely possible without the help and support of a number of people, and writing a book is by no means an exception. There are so many people to thank who supported me throughout the process of putting this volume together that I fear the acknowledgements section itself could be as long as one of the chapters! However, there are some individuals who absolutely must be identified, for without them this book would never have been completed.

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The Critical Period Hypothesis (Lenneberg, 1967) has been widely discussed in the context of both L1 and L2 development (see Bialystok and Miller, 1999; Birdsong, 1999; DeKeyser, 2000; Singleton, 2005; Nikolov, 2009; DeKeyser, Alfi-Shabtay, and Ravid, 2010; Muñoz and Singleton, 2011; DeKeyser, 2013). There is considerable variability with respect to how the CPH has been defined and the types of learner and task types that have been researched in respect of the CPH. Consequently, the results are complex and somewhat mixed (Bialystok and Miller, 1999; Singleton, 2005). One of the issues that has been difficult for researchers to pin down is the exact onset and offset of the CPH – when the CPH begins and ends. Lenneberg (1967) originally proposed the onset was around two years old, with the offset around 12 years (corresponding to puberty). This claim initiated a considerable amount of research investigating the extent to which this might be true, both for L1 and L2 (see Herschensohn, 2007). As a consequence of this research effort, almost all of Lenneberg’s original ideas related to the CPH have been refuted (Herschensohn, 2007; see also Snow, 1987). Proponents of the CPH currently argue that the onset is birth, possibly even before birth (see discussion in Chapter 2 on infant speech processing) not two years, and that the offset is likely to be far earlier than puberty, possibly around the age at which typical L1 development is (almost) complete, around 5 or 6 years. Other researchers have argued that age effects in language learning should not be viewed in the constraints of a ‘critical’ period, but rather, opt for the term ‘sensitive’ period to identify that there are no exact cut-off points (Herschensohn, 2007).

There is a wide range of evidence considered supportive of the CPH for L1 development, ranging from neurological studies regarding lateralization of brain function (Penfield and Roberts, 1959), to research on age-of-acquisition effects in deaf children learning to sign, showing that children who learn to sign at younger ages tend to have higher scores on various morphological tasks (Emmorey, 2002; Newport, 1990). There are also compelling and disturbing cases of children who mature in extreme isolation and who fail to develop native-like linguistic competence (Curtiss, 1977; Curtiss, Fromkin, Krashen, Rigler, and Rigler, 2004). Despite research showing these age-of-acquisition effects, the research community has not universally accepted the view that there is a critical period for language development – for either L1 or L2 learning (Bortfield and Whitehurst, 2001; Hakuta, 2001; Snow, 2002). This is because there are a number of variables which are typically confounded with age – such as the nature of the linguistic input (both in terms of quality and quantity), the motivation and aptitude of the learner, and whether the learner receives formal instruction in the L2 – where some researchers have argued that these other variables are more influential in determining differences between young and older learners (Hakuta, Bialystok, and Wiley, 2003).

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