АBAI KAZAKH NATIONAL PEDAGOGICAL UNIVERSITY

PROJECT

AGE AS A GENERAL PSYCHOLOGICAL

FACTOR.

Student: Alibekova A.D

Almaty 2021
 Age as a general psychological factor.

Plan:
1. The effects of age.
2. The critical period hypothesis.

1.Age as a general psychological factor in teaching foreign language.

Language is as to what it does. It is possible that age differences in second language acquisition can be
explained in terms of the different orientation to language of children and older learners.
Rosansky (1975) has argued that cognitive development accounts for the greater ease with which younger
children learn languages. She believes that second language development can take place in two different
ways, according to whether he is doing. The young child sees only similarities, lacks flexible thinking, and
is self-centered. These are the pre-requisites of automatic language acquisition, because associated with
them is an absence of meta-awareness. The young child does not know that he is acquiring language.
Furthermore, the young child has not developed social attitudes towards the use of one language as opposed
to another. For these reasons he is cognitively 'open' to another language. In contrast, the adult cannot learn a
second language automatically and naturally. The onset of abstract thinking that comes around the age of
twelve with the final stage of cognitive development, as described by Piaget (i.e. formal Operations), means
that the learner is predisposed to recognize differences as well as similarities, to think flexibly, and to
become increasingly de-centred. As a result he possesses a strong meta-awareness. Also he is likely to hold
strong social attitudes towards the use of his own language and the target language. These may serve as
blocks to natural language acquisition, forcing the learner to treat the acquisition task as 'problem to be
solved using his hypothetico-deductive logic. In Rosansky's view, then, it is the awareness that comes with
age that inhibits natural learning and that leads to an alternative approach.
The problem with Rosansky's arguments is the same as that with the neurological explanations. They are
both based on the false assumption that post-puberty learners are less efficient and less successful than
younger learners. However, also Rosansky's position cannot stand up to the empirical evidence; it is still
possible that cognitive development is a factor. It can help to explain why adolescents learn more rapidly
than children. The meta-awareness that comes with Formal operations may facilitate more efficient learning.
Not only can the adolescent 'pick up' language like a child, but he can supplement this process by conscious
study.
Affective explanations
Another possibility that has been explored is that differences in the affective states of young and older
learners account for age differences in second language acquisition.
Brown (1980b) proposed that second language acquisition is related to stages of acculturation, i.e. the ability
of the learner to relate and respond easily to the foreign language culture. Brown identifies four stages of
acculturation:
1. Initial excitement and euphoria;
2. Culture shock, leading to feelings of estrangement and hostility towards the target culture;
3. Culture stress, involving a gradual and vacillating recovery;
4. Assimilation or adaptation to the new culture.
Brown argues that stage 3 is the crucial phase. Young children are seen as socio-culturally resilient, because
they are less culture-bound that adults. They move through the stages of acculturation more quickly and so
acquire the second language more quickly.
Neufeld (1978) offers a more convincing account of how affective factors are related to age differences in
second language acquisition. He distinguishes 'primary' and 'secondary' levels of language. Primary levels
include a reasonably large functional vocabulary, and basic mastery of pronunciation and grammatical rules.
Secondary levels include the ability to handle complex grammatical structure and different languages styles.
All learners, according to Neufeld, have an innate ability to acquire primary levels. However, children are
more likely to achieve secondary levels than adults because they are much more strongly motivated by the
need to be accepted by their peer groups. Whereas the adult is happy to maintain a foreign accent, for
instance, the child who is exposed to the first language culture is anxious to achieve native-like
pronunciation.
The effects of age.According to the literature review about the Critical Period Hypothesis and age-related
factors, we can observe that young learners stand the superior stage to acquire second language than adults
or adolescents. Although the older learners seem to be faster and efficient learner in second language
learning, young learner can learn language better than adults or adolescent in some areas of language and
achieve good performance in the ultimate language learning.
However, there are age-related factors relating to learner’s second language acquisition such as the
cognitive, psychological and social factors which will affect learners’ second language learning. They can be
summarized as individual capacity, language aptitude, second language instruction, teaching method,
teaching material, self-conscious,personality, attitude, and motivation and so on. Eventually, all these
assumptions would provide some pedagogicalconsiderations to the second language programmes for young
learners’ foreign language learning.
Based on the CPH, age-related differences and factors, the assumption is that when young learners are
exposed to the second language earlier, they will achieve better performance and proficiency in second
language acquisition. This assumption is widely believed that early acquisition of foreign language will
facilitate their learning later in the life.They will learn second language better and win the ultimate
achievement in the long run. Childhood is considered to be the golden age to second language learning.
Therefore, it is good idea to conduct the foreign language instruction earlier in the school to make children
expose to the foreign language learning earlier at their early stage.
According to Singleton and Ryan, people who begin learning a second language in childhood in the long run
may generally achieve a higher level of proficiency than those who begin later Obviously,
this statement contributes to the hypothesis for starting foreign language instruction earlier. It seems as a
good start for young learners holding the chances to acquire foreign language with early immersion to the
foreign language instruction.
In the past years, Chinese government policy put little emphasis and investment for the foreign language
programme to education reform. English as our foreign language curriculum was initially designed in the
secondary school almost in every part of China. According to my learning experience, I began learning
English at 12 years old when entered into junior high school. That is my first time to be exposed to the
foreign language without any chances to know English before because of the education policy on the foreign
language teaching. Foreign language instruction began very late in China about 20 years ago.
However, with hypothesis on children’s early starting foreign language learning which is about the earlier
children are exposed to foreign language, the faster they will acquire, Chinese educational policy on foreign
language programmes has been changed. Additionally, there is an enormous boom of interest in early
foreign language instruction all over the world in 1990s This trend also draws Chinese educational policy
attention to foreign language programmes on meeting the globalization and internationalization.
In the 1990s, English as a required course began at children’s fifth grade in the elementary school.
Thereafter, the English teaching programmes changed again to require English courses to be stated at
children’s third grade in the elementary school around 2000. As the time goes on, the new policy
emphasizes the importance of the earlystarting foreign language teaching programmes at children’s early
age. The government of China has been actively emphasizingthe English as a foreign language as an
essential and compulsory curriculum in the school in recent years. Therefore, English is actually required at
first grade in the elementary school. The another necessary thing need to be mentioned that more and more
nursery school in almost affluent cities begin to teach children English at their 3-4 years old in
China. All these changes about the foreign language teaching policy in China shows that foreign language
instruction is attracted attention to implementing foreign language instruction in the school earlier.
To sum up, I want to mention that the early foreign language instruction will motivate children to learn
foreign language based on children’s personality. General speaking, they often show their curiosity to some
new things except learning the L1. Based on my own learning experience, I expected to learn English and
wandered to know what English is like when I studied in the elementary school. Therefore, to some extent,
if foreign English instruction will be implemented in the school earlier, it will contribute to developing
children’s favorable attitude on second language learning. They will show their self-conscious and aware the
cultural differences when being immersed into the target language context. Consequently, foreign language
instruction should be introduced to the school as early as possible since it is good for children being exposed
to the second language context and facilitating their foreign language learning in the long run.
2. The critical period hypothesis. First, the age span for a putative critical period for language acquisition
has been delimited in different ways in the literature . Lenneberg's critical period stretched from two years of
age to puberty (which he posits at about 14 years of age), whereas other scholars have drawn the cutoff point
at 12, 15, 16 or 18 years of age. Unlike Lenneberg, most researchers today do not define a starting age for
the critical period for language learning. Some, however, consider the possibility of the critical period (or a
critical period for a specific language area, e.g. phonology) ending much earlier than puberty (e.g. age 9
years or as early as 12 months in the case of phonology).
Second, some vagueness remains as to the setting that is relevant to the CPH. Does the critical period
constrain implicit learning processes only, i.e. only the untutored language acquisition in immersion contexts
or does it also apply to (at least partly) instructed learning? Most researchers agree on the former , but much
research has included subjects who have had at least some instruction in the L2.
Third, there is no consensus on what the scope of the CP is as far as the areas of language that are concerned.
Most researchers agree that a CP is most likely to constrain the acquisition of pronunciation and grammar
and, consequently, these are the areas primarily looked into in studies on the CPH . Some researchers have
also tried to define distinguishable CPs for the different language areas of phonetics, morphology and syntax
and even for lexis (see for an overview).Fourth and last, research into the CPH has focused on ‘ultimate
attainment’ (UA) or the ‘final’ state of L2 proficiency rather than on the rate of learning. From research into
the rate of acquisition , it has become clear that the CPH cannot hold for the rate variable. In fact, it has been
observed that adult learners proceed faster than child learners at the beginning stages of L2 acquisition.
Though theoretical reasons for excluding the rate can be posited (the initial faster rate of learning in adults
may be the result of more conscious cognitive strategies rather than to less conscious implicit learning, for
instance), rate of learning might from a different perspective also be considered an indicator of
‘susceptibility’ or ‘sensitivity’ to language input. Nevertheless, contemporary SLA scholars generally seem
to concur that UA and not rate of learning is the dependent variable of primary interest in CPH research.
These and further scope delineation problems relevant to CPH research are discussed in more detail by,
among others, Birdsong , DeKeyser and Larson-Hall , Long and Muñoz and Singleton.
Once the relevant CPH's scope has satisfactorily been identified, clear and testable predictions need to be
drawn from it. At this stage, the lack of consensus on what the consequences or the actual observable
outcome of a CP would have to look like becomes evident. As touched upon earlier, CPH research is
interested in the end state or ‘ultimate attainment’ (UA) in L2 acquisition because this “determines the upper
limits of L2 attainment” . The range of possible ultimate attainment states thus helps researchers to explore
the potential maximum outcome of L2 proficiency before and after the putative critical period.
One strong prediction made by some CPH exponents holds that post-CP learners cannot reach native-like L2
competences. Identifying a single native-like post-CP L2 learner would then suffice to falsify all CPH s
making this prediction. Assessing this prediction is difficult, however, since it is not clear what exactly
constitutes sufficient nativelikeness, as illustrated by the discussion on the actual nativelikeness of highly
accomplished L2 speakers . Indeed, there exists a real danger that, in a quest to vindicate the CPH, scholars
set the bar for L2 learners to match monolinguals increasingly higher – up to Swiftian extremes.
Furthermore, the usefulness of comparing the linguistic performance in mono- and bilinguals has been
called into question. Put simply, the linguistic repertoires of mono- and bilinguals differ by definition and
differences in the behavioural outcome will necessarily be found, if only one digs deep enough.
A second strong prediction made by CPH proponents is that the function linking age of acquisition and
ultimate attainment will not be linear throughout the whole lifespan. Before discussing how this function
would have to look like in order for it to constitute CPH-consistent evidence, I point out that the ultimate
attainment variable can essentially be considered a cumulative measure dependent on the actual variable of
interest in CPH research, i.e. susceptibility to language input, as well as on such other factors like duration
and intensity of learning (within and outside a putative CP) and possibly a number of other influencing
factors. To elaborate, the behavioural outcome, i.e. ultimate attainment, can be assumed to be integrative to
the susceptibility function, as Newport correctly points out. Other things being equal, ultimate attainment
will therefore decrease as susceptibility decreases. However, decreasing ultimate attainment levels in and by
themselves represent no compelling evidence in favour of a CPH. The form of the integrative curve must
therefore be predicted clearly from the susceptibility function. Additionally, the age of acquisition–ultimate
attainment function can take just about any form when other things are not equal, e.g. duration of learning
(Does learning last up until time of testing or only for a more or less constant number of years or is it
dependent on age itself?) or intensity of learning (Do learners always learn at their maximum susceptibility
level or does this intensity vary as a function of age, duration, present attainment and motivation?). The
integral of the susceptibility function could therefore be of virtually unlimited complexity and its parameters
could be adjusted to fit any age of acquisition–ultimate attainment pattern. It seems therefore astonishing
that the distinction between level of sensitivity to language input and level of ultimate attainment is rarely
made in the literature. Implicitly or explicitly , the two are more or less equated and the same mathematical
functions are expected to describe the two variables if observed across a range of starting ages of
acquisition.
But even when the susceptibility and ultimate attainment variables are equated, there remains controversy as
to what function linking age of onset of acquisition and ultimate attainment would actually constitute
evidence for a critical period. Most scholars agree that not any kind of age effect constitutes such evidence.
More specifically, the age of acquisition–ultimate attainment function would need to be different before and
after the end of the CP . According to Birdsong , three basic possible patterns proposed in the literature meet
this condition. These patterns are presented in Figure 1. The first pattern describes a steep decline of the age
of onset of acquisition (AOA)–ultimate attainment (UA) function up to the end of the CP and a practically
non-existent age effect thereafter. Pattern 2 is an “unconventional, although often implicitly invoked” notion
of the CP function which contains a period of peak attainment (or performance at ceiling), i.e. performance
does not vary as a function of age, which is often referred to as a ‘window of opportunity’. This time span is
followed by an unbounded decline in UA depending on AOA. Pattern 3 includes characteristics of patterns 1
and 2. At the beginning of the AOA range, performance is at ceiling. The next segment is a downward slope
in the age function which ends when performance reaches its floor. Birdsong points out that all of these
patterns have been reported in the literature. On closer inspection, however, he concludes that the most
convincing function describing these age effects is a simple linear one. Hakuta et al. sketch further
theoretically possible predictions of the CPH in which the mean performance drops drastically and/or the
slope of the AOA–UA proficiency function changes at a certain point.

Three possible critical period effects.

Although several patterns have been proposed in the literature, it bears pointing out that the most common
explicit prediction corresponds to Birdsong's first pattern, as exemplified by the following crystal-clear
statement by DeKeyser, one of the foremost CPH proponents:
A strong negative correlation between age of acquisition and ultimate attainment throughout the lifespan (or
even from birth through middle age), the only age effect documented in many earlier studies, is not evidence
for a critical period.he critical period concept implies a break in the AoA–proficiency function, i.e., an age
(somewhat variable from individual to individual, of course, and therefore an age range in the aggregate)
after which the decline of success rate in one or more areas of language is much less pronounced and/or
clearly due to different reasons.
DeKeyser and before him among others Johnson and Newport thus conceptualise only one possible pattern
which would speak in favour of a critical period: a clear negative age effect before the end of the critical
period and a much weaker (if any) negative correlation between age and ultimate attainment after it. This
‘flattened slope’ prediction has the virtue of being much more tangible than the ‘potential nativelikeness’
prediction: Testing it does not necessarily require comparing the L2-learners to a native control group and
thus effectively comparing apples and oranges. Rather, L2-learners with different AOAs can be compared
amongst themselves without the need to categorise them by means of a native-speaker yardstick, the validity
of which is inevitably going to be controversial . In what follows, I will concern myself solely with the
‘flattened slope’ prediction, arguing that, despite its clarity of formulation, CPH research has generally used
analytical methods that are irrelevant for the purposes of actually testing it.
CONCLUSION
According to the Critical Period Hypothesis, age is proved to be the myth that young learners stand the
advantage stage in second language learning. They will learn foreign language better than older learners in
the ultimate attainment, though older learner is regarded as fast and efficient language learner. Immersing
young learners into foreign language learning earlier will help them hold the favorable attitude on language
learning in the long run. Therefore, we should teach learners’ foreign language as early as possible,
especially at their early age. When they fist enter to the school, the foreign language courses should be
introduced for them in the class. It would help them form the foreign language belief like their mother
tongue. Because of their personality, they will show their interest to learn the foreign language.
They can memorize words quickly because of their brain and can be easy to achieve the native accent. It is
widely believed that young learners show their superior learning quality to acquire second language than
older learners based on CPH.
When education institute proposes new the foreign language learning programmes for foreign language
teaching, the government should support and invest money so as to put it into effect. When course director
plans the course, they should consult the teachers as well as the students to get more information about the
foreign language course, such as the time, the books. When course director chooses the teaching materials
for foreign language teaching, they should ascertain the teaching content and teaching structure to some
extent. The education institute needs to introduce the international publishers’ books or materials from the
English speaking countries. Authentic materials and task-based contents need to be taken into account when
our educators choose the teaching materials. The teaching materials including more authentic materials and
activities will serve teachers’ teaching methodology and techniques. When our teachers teach young
learners’ foreign language, we should pay more attention to their personality, learning style, learning
strategy, interest, motivation, etc. All these factors would affect their language learning and need to be
considered. We should make sense of the way to attract young learners’ attention from the sensitivity of
grammar practice to the communicative classroom environment. The important thing for our foreign
language teacher to make sense is that their teaching goal is to arouse young learners’ interest and
enthusiasm to learn a foreign language so that they can achieve the linguistic competence and
communicative competence in the ultimate foreign language learning.Therefore, it is urgent for our educator
to consider stimulations to young learners’ foreign language teaching and learning the reason why is that
they will perform better in the ultimate foreign language learning.
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