Younger and Older Learners

Written by: Elhassan ROUIJEL

In this paper I will try to react to a chapter from Penny Ur's A Course in Language Teaching
(1996), entitled "Younger and older learners". This chapter, or module, is divided into four units.
The first one is devoted to dealing with the question: what difference does age make to language
learning. The author proceeds by selecting some widely held assumptions about age and language
learning and by analyzing these assumptions. Hence, the author, commenting on the ideas that
young children learn better, sees that "foreign languages in school should start early" with an
apparent reservation. Although she agrees that early exposure to a foreign language is "likely to
lead to better long-term results", she still maintains that age helps in efficient learning.
In unit two; "teaching children", Penny Ur focuses the light on motivation. She takes
pictures, stories, and games as three important sources of interest for children. However, she shows
apparent hostility to games as a means of education because, she thinks, they vulgarize learning,
which is a serious aim, and make "just fun" (1996:289). Instead, she suggests thinking of "game-
like" language learning activities.
In unit three, "teaching adolescents: student preferences", Penny Ur emphasizes the
importance of the teacher's finding out of how adolescents like to be taught. To achieve this aim,
she suggests a model questionnaire that the teacher can submit either to experienced teachers or to
students themselves to fill. She suggests that the teacher can afterwards compare the answers to his
or her expectations. Afterwards, the teacher can amend his or her style in the light of the
questionnaire.
In the last and fourth unit, "teaching adults: a different relationship", the author moves on to
analyze different kinds of relationship between the teacher and students. She presents a set of types
of relationship which differ according to authority, and to which part of the duality teacher vs.
student the relationship is vested.
In short these are the main points that came in this chapter. Now I shall move to the critique
of this chapter.
Critique of the article
In the first unit Penny Ur undertakes to analyze the effect of age on language learning. And
to achieve this aim, she opts for putting a set of pre-assumptions about age and language under
scrutiny. Thus, she starts by refuting the idea that young children learn better, backing up her
attitude by different studies. Her point is that the older the child is, the more effectively he or she
learns. In fact this attitude finds support in what Rod Ellis said in this respect: "If learners at
different ages are matched according to the amount of time they have been exposed to L2, it is the
older learners who reach higher levels of proficiency." (Rod Ellis 1994:105). This is because the
older the child is, the more he or she is able to process complicated types of information, and to deal
with abstract ideas. Furthermore, older children are normally more able to concentrate for a longer
time than younger ones.
Therefore, Penny Ur doesn't totally agree with the idea that foreign language learning should
start early in schools. She argues that "the investment of lesson time at an early age may be cost-
effective". This point brings into light the critical age hypothesis, i.e. "if you get to old and pass this
period you will have significantly more difficulty learning" (Penny Ur: 287). The author takes this
idea with apparent doubt, because, she says, it is "not conclusively supported by research evidence."
(Penny Ur: 287). The critical age hypothesis, however, has its fans just as it has its opponents: "Eric
Lennherg (1967) and others have suggested that literalization is a slow process that begins around
the age of 2 and is completed around puberty." (H. Douglas Brown 1987: 43). This means that,
according to this tendency, learning a language becomes difficult after puberty. Anyway, Penny Ur
has managed to strike a balance between these different attitudes by concluding that "it is also true
that an early start to language learning is likely to lead to better long-term results if early learning is

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maintained and reinforced as the child gets older." Thus, she manages to find a safe way out of the
dilemma.
In unit two, "Teaching children", Penny Ur focuses the light on the role of motivation in
enhancing the children's language learning. She points out that "children have a greater immediate
need to be motivated by the teacher or the materials in order to learn effectively" (p.288). However,
Ur doesn't define motivation (perhaps because she has already dealt with it in a previous chapter).
Anyway, H. Douglas Brown defines motivation as " an inner drive, impulse, emotion, or desire that
moves one to a particular action. More specifically, human beings universally have needs or drives
that are more or less innate, yet their intensity is environmentally conditioned" (1987: 114). This
definition strikes a balance between intrinsic motivation, which is an inner energy that dictates our
actions, and extrinsic motivation, which is the environment that conditions this energy. And it is in
the light of this distinction that Penny Ur deals with this issue of motivation. In this respect, she
gives the priority to children on the basis that children will quickly get bored if they lack
motivation, while adults, who are usually responsible for their learning are usually self motivating.
Hence, to make learning more and more interesting for children in the classroom, Penny Ur
suggests using pictures, stories and games as "three very important sources of interest" for them.
(p.288). Concerning pictures, Ur thinks that they are of a paramount importance. She says that the
visual "is a very dominant channel of input" (p. 289). Indeed, the importance of visuals in language
teaching has remained undebatable as they are normally the teacher's best resort "for teaching
meaning, for cueing responses in intensive practice work, for indicating some of the meaning of a
tense form, for providing cultural background and setting for dialogues etc" (Andrew Wright
1981:117). Pictures' importance in children's classroom, however, exceeds satisfying the needs
suggested by Andrew Wright to exert an emotional effect on children. Colored pictures can be used
to attract the child's attention and arouse his or her interest in the lesson.
Penny Ur also suggests stories as a means for motivating children. She regards telling a
story in a foreign language as "one of the simplest and riches sources of foreign language input for
younger learners" (p.289). Pictures and stories, she suggests, could be more effective if they are
successfully combined.
However, Penny Ur shows an apparent hostility to games as classroom activities. She says:
"Once you call a language learning activity a 'game' you convey the message that it is just fun, not
to be taken seriously: a message I consider anti-educational and potentially demoralizing." (p289)
By saying so, Ur raises a controversial issue, and a series of questions float on the surface:
Are games always an obstacle of serious learning? Can't games serve educational purposes? What is
Penny Ur's concept of 'educational' and 'anti-educational'? Does education always demand a solemn
atmosphere void of any fun? Penny Ur herself admits that "monotonous, apparently pointless
activities quickly bore and demotivate young learners" (p. 288). And this is usually the case with
grammar; it is very likely to turn into a monotonous activity and young learners usually fail to see
its point. So, if a teacher devises a game to make grammatical lessons more appealing to children,
will he or she be causing any harm to education?
In a study about "games and problem solving", Alan Maley suggests games and game-like
activities in order to "foster 'natural', 'creative', 'authentic' language behaviour on the part of
learners" (Alan Maley 1981: 137). He goes on to discuss the emotional impact of games and game-
like activities on the learner, pointing out that "in game-like activities the learner is free to be
himself. He can engage his real personality with those of fellow-learners without the additional
burden of trying to be someone else." (p.137)
However, Penny Ur is moderate enough to tolerate some games in the classroom "as a
break", but not in the process of learning and teaching, because, she says, "to call something a game
when our goal is serious learning may harm the learning" (!!) (p. 289).
Then Penny Ur moves to the following unit, "Teaching adolescents: student preferences". In
this unit she suggests consulting adolescents as a source of guidance to how to teach them. She
suggests a questionnaire as a means of survey of students' opinions about how "the good teacher"
should be, leaving a margin for teacher to add further items or delete what they think irrelevant.
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However, the rationale behind this idea of questionnaire remains unclear. And, once again, a series
of questions emerge on the surface. Is the teacher supposed to conform to the students' concepts of
the "good teacher"? And what can a teacher do in front of the diversity of his or her students'
answers? I think building trusting relationships between a teacher and his or her students demands a
compromise; i.e. students should themselves try to be "good students" just as the teacher should get
near them to enhance mutual understanding. The teacher needs after all to get ideas about the
students' learning styles in order to enhance his or her teaching style accordingly. I think that such a
compromise will demand some time, but I wonder to what extent the questionnaire will reduce this
time.
Penny Ur moves to the last and fourth unit to discuss "Teaching adults: a different
relationship". In this unit she provides an analysis of a set of types of relationships between the
teacher and students. These types differ according to authority, which is, in some types, given to the
teacher, and, in others, to the students. The first type, for instance, gives complete authority to the
teacher. This type is "authority-subjects to authority". The teacher, according to this type, has
authority "on language and how to learn it". (p.294). This is the type we usually encounter in
Moroccan public schools. The teacher has some authority to decide the objectives to achieve and
the method to implement. Still, the teacher has to abide by the program designed by the ministry.
However, this authority is based on the basis of what Penny Ur calls "the important factor of
accountability" (p.295), for the students expect a return in terms of learning outcomes. Another type
of relationship, "transmitter-receiver", is more democratic than the previous one. Students are "in a
better position to assert their right to question, criticize and generally participate actively" (p.295).
This type is still rare in Moroccan high schools, for it demands a somehow good mastery of the
language. This type of relationship can be encountered in universities rather than high schools.
"Resource-users" is the type that deprives the teacher from all sets of power, and makes of him or
her "a mere source of knowledge to be tapped by learners". In this type of relationship the teacher
becomes "virtually passive in classroom interaction. It is the learner who tells the teacher what to
do" (p.295). Of course, this type of relationship necessitates that the teacher should master the target
language, but without knowing how to teach it, whereas the learners should know what they want to
how to get it. Apart from some rare private cases, I don't think that this type of relationship exists in
the Moroccan educational system.
Conclusion
To conclude, this chapter managed to cover the differences between older and younger
learners in the field of language learning. The ideas of the chapter are of a great importance,
especially for inexperienced teachers who are still trying to shape their style of teaching, and who
are still learning about the differences between young learner, adolescents and adults.

Bibliography

 Johnsen, Keith and Morrow, Keith (ed). 1981. Communication in the Classroom.
Essex: Longman Group Ltd.
 Brown H. Douglas. 1987. Principles of Language Learning and Teaching. New
Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc
 Ellis, Rod. 1994. Understanding Second Language Acquisition. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.