Monday, March 14, 2011

Do children really learn languages more easily than teenagers or adults?







Esther said...

Very interesting post! If I may, I'd like to add that the perception an adult has of his/her own capabilities to learn a second/foreign language plays also a big role in his/her learning. I teach Spanish as a foreign language (to francophones) at the College level; what I observe is that too often, even at the very beginning, an adult will be convinced that they won't be able to learn easily, because of their age. They repeat it to themselves like a mantra: «I will have trouble, it won't be easy, because I'm an adult». As a consecuence, at the first mistake, they tend to judge themselves too hard and this only confirm their prior assumption, that they won't be able. For the teacher, this pattern is a hard one to break. The vast majority of these adults have, in fact, a great understanding of the language, and of its nuances: they just don't believe that they have it! Everyone says it's hard for an adult to learn a foreign language, so they expect it to be so («I can't be understanding this, I'm not a kid!»). In my experience, this kind of negative thinking is a big obstacle that, maybe, children don't experience as much because they can't back up their own lack of confidence with stereotypes or myths, as adults can.

Keep up the good work. A pleasure to read you. Best regards,

Esther Boucher

Karen Nemeth said...

I think it is very important to remember that Patricia Kuhl's research does not measure language development. She measures speech perception which is only one part of language development. Her research is incredibly valuable - but not if we let our overgeneralizations get away with us. She did determine, for example, that infants do not seem to learn speech sounds from recordings or videos. Very important! But that doesn't mean no child ever learns anything from technology. So, I appreciate your distinction between informal language and academic language fluency.

Anita said...

I agree with you about this. When living in Brazil my daughter & I had the same experiences you are talking about when learning the language in different ways during the first few years.

Anita said...

I agree with you that teens and adults learn the grammatical language faster and young children learn the street language faster. That was the experience my daughter and I had while living in Brazil during the first few years we were learning Portuguese.
Anita Phillips

Kim Aquino said...

Hi, Judie! I have taught all levels, kids, teens and adults. I think that kids learn easily because they are easily motivated. They mimic words quickly. Teens are the hardest. Some of them are just being forced by their parents to learn English. Right now I'm teaching adults. I have adults who are really struggling with speaking.