Age and Acquisition

     1. In your opinion which 3 of the 7 myths are of importance to dispel? Why?

          Speech Development: it tells that a child first develops listening, then speaking, then    reading, and finally writing. I think that develop of those skills depends on the learners' skills, because for he/she could be more easy first reading and then listening.

          Imitation: It tells that we must be a mimic like a small child, but if we imitates everything we will speak in a simply way.

          Translation: This myth tells that children shouldn’t translate words when we acquire our mother tongue, but it is totally different when we want to learn a L2, because we need to know the meanings of what we are saying or learn.   

     2. Refer and explain 3 out of the 5 topics from the cognitive psychologist Ausubel.

·               Adults learning a foreign language could, with their full cognitive capacities, benefit from deductive presentations of grammar; It means that adults has the mental capacity to related their L1 grammar with the L2 grammar to compared and made their own conclusions.

•       The native language of the learner is not just an interfering factor - it can facilitate learning a second language; It means that if L1 and L2 are similar, it will be more easy for the learner to learn a L2.
•       Students could be overwhelmed by language spoken at its "natural speed", and they, like children, could benefit from more deliberative speech from teacher; It means that students could feel overwhelmed when they try to understand when a native speaker, because of the fluency (fast), that is why teachers uses simply forms to provides the students comprehensible input.  

       3. Explain the possible comparisons and contrasts between children and adult acquisition.

           There are three types of comparison and contrasts:

               a) First and second language acquisition in children, holding age constant. However, it is important to remember that a 2-year-old and an 11-year-old exhibit vast cognitive, affective, and physical differences.

               b) Second language acquisition in children and adults, holding second language constant. In this comparison, one holding language constant and manipulating the differences between children and adults. Some comparisons are the most fruitful in yielding analogies for adult second language classroom instructions.

               c) First language acquisition in children and second language acquisition in adults. This comparison unfortunately manipulates both variables. Many of the traditional comparisons were of this type; however, such comparisons must be made only with extreme caution because of the enormous cognitive, affective, and physical differences between children and adults.

      4. Refer to the CPH according to: Lenneberg (1967) and Bickerton (1981) “The over the hill possibility” 

          The researchers like Lenneberg (1967) and Bickerton (1981) made strong statements in favor of a critical period before which and after which certain abilities do not develop. They hold that there is such a biological timetable. Regarding to incapacity of acquiring a second language, by the age of 12 or 13 years are "over the hill" when it comes to the possibility of successful second language learning.

  

      5. Discuss three points about the hemispheric lateralization.

           There evidence in neurological research that as the human brain matures, certain functions are assigned, or "lateralized", to the left hemisphere of the brain, and certain other functions to the right hemisphere. Intellectual, logical, and analytic functions appear to be largely located in the left hemisphere, while the right hemisphere controls functions related to emotional and social needs.

           Tomas Scovel (1969) suggested that the plasticity of the brain prior to puberty enables children to acquire not only their first language but also a second language.

  

     6. What do we mean by biological accent-related?

          The sociobiological evidence that Soviet cited persuades us to conclude that native accents, and therefore "foreign" accents after puberty, may be a genetic leftover that, in our widespread human practice of mating across dialectual, linguistic, and racial barriers, is no longer necessary for the preservation of the human species. Following another line of research, Walsh and Diler proposed that different aspects of a second language are learned optimally at different ages: Lower-order processes such as pronunciation are dependent on early maturing and less adaptive macroneural circuits, while Higher-order language are more dependent on late maturing natural circuits. 

      7. What is the role of the right hemisphere in learning a L2?

           Obler noted that in L2 learning, there is significant right hemisphere participation and that "this participation is particularly active during the early stages of learning the L2. Genesee concluded that "there may be greater right hemisphere involvement in language processing in bilinguals who acquire their second language late relative to their first language and in bilingual who learn it in informal contexts.