Communication and Culture: The Benefits of Beginning Foreign Language Study Early :: Research Papers

Communication and nuance The Benefits of Beginning Foreign Language Study Early As spherical awareness increases, American interest in thestudy of speech communications other than slope increases apace. Unlike earlyprograms which did not teach phraseologysprimarily to learn verbal/auralcommunication, but to learn for the sake of being scholarly or, in someinstances, for gaining a reading proficiency in the foreign terminology(Brown 18), the twentieth century began to focus on communicatorygoals, and a medley of new theories and methods for teaching were plant forth. A common goal has emerged, and contemporary programs pushstudents towards fluency. Therefore, more re attend is being conductedinto the best possible ways to create competent communicators. TheLongman Dictionary of Language Teaching and Applied philology definescommunicative competence as the ability not only to gift thegrammatical rules of a language in order to form grammatically correctsentences but also t o know when and where to use these sentences andto whom (Richards, Platt, and Platt 65). As scholars search for thebest ways to achieve communicative competence, they emphasize theimportance of descent language study early.The critical period hypothesis first put forth by Lennebergin the late 1960s holds that there is a limited developmental periodduring which it is possible to acquire a languageto normal, nativelikelevels (Birdsong, 1). At the most generous estimate, this critical periodis thought to insure from the age of 2 only until puberty, and someestimates posit a some(prenominal) narrower window (for more information on thepossible causes of the critical period, moderate Birdsong, 7-9). According toKrashen, Long, and Scarcella, although adults and older children ingeneral initially acquire the imprimatur language faster than untried children(oldest-is-better for rate of acquisition), child second languageacquirers will usually be superior in terms of final attainment( younger-is-better in the long run) (574). This eventual attainmentincludes superior orthoepy skills (Fledge 101) when compared withlearners who began their study later in life.Although starting age determines the levels ofcommunicative accuracy achieved, especially in pronunciation (Ellisqtd. in Nunan 41), beginning young has an additional advantage. Theyoung learner has many years of schooling left in which to look for thisnew language, and the number of years exposure contributes greatly tothe overall communicative fluency of the learners (Ellis qtd. in Nunan41). Although the pace of the young learner may be slower than thatof the older learner, when language learning begins earlier, it can goon longer and provide more practice and experience, leading ultimatelyto greater fluency and effectiveness (Curtain and Pesola, Languages andChildren 3) than is generally achieved when study begins after puberty.