• www.etprofessional.com • ENGLISH TEACHING professional • Issue 28 July 2003 • 5

M A I N F E A T U R E

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Is youngerbetter?

Is youngerbetter?

Carol Read sees early

learning as a way of opening

windows of the mind.

All over the world, children areincreasingly required to startlearning a foreign language,

usually English, at a younger andyounger age. The cry of ‘younger isbetter’ has become a mantra, chantedalmost unthinkingly by those with astake in implementing languageprogrammes and courses for children.

It is a mantra which is popular withpoliticians: bringing down the age oflearning English wins votes.

It is popular with parents: it offersopportunities for a brighter future fortheir children.

It is popular with publishers andlanguage course providers: it opens upnew markets.

For teachers, and others closelyinvolved in children’s education, it hasalmost become part of our collective,professional ‘group think’ – somethingthat we take for granted and rarelyquestion. If we also rely on educationfor a living, we have a major vestedinterest in believing it to be true.

I would like to explore whether‘younger’ is actually ‘better’ in thecontext of learning a foreign language inlong-term, drip-feed courses at school,or whether it may be a fallacy, based onwishful thinking and faulty assumptions,as recently suggested, for example, byDavid Nunan and Penny Ur.

Two central ideas which lie behindthe popular assumption that ‘younger isbetter’ are:

1 the widely-held view that since youngchildren learn their mother tongue soquickly and effectively, they will be ableto pick up a foreign language in thesame way, without ever having to makeany real effort.

2 the concept of a critical or sensitiveperiod, an idea developed around themid-20th century of a ‘magic’ period inchildren’s lives (usually identified as up

to the age of about 12) after which theirbrains lose plasticity and they are nolonger capable of learning anotherlanguage so effectively. This idea is alsoimplicitly reflected when you hearpeople say things like ‘Oh, I wish I’dstarted learning Spanish (or whateverlanguage) when I was younger’.

However, a look at the evidence, andat the needs, motivations and contextsof different learners, suggests that boththese assumptions may be fallacies,except in particular circumstances.

The mother tongueIn the case of mother tongue acquisition,children are learning language at the sametime as they are discovering who they are,establishing vital family relationships andbeginning to make sense of the world.This experience is fundamentally differentto the contrived encounter with a foreignlanguage, possibly two or three times aweek and often with someone (theteacher) not known personally verywell. Given the huge gap between thetwo experiences, there is no way that wecan expect children automatically totransfer skills from one to the other.

A critical period?Although a critical or sensitive period isgenerally agreed to exist for mothertongue acquisition (and there are strongand weak versions of this), there is littleconclusive evidence to support the ideaof a critical or sensitive period for foreignlanguage learning, except in the case ofchildren learning a second language innaturalistic conditions, where there islengthy exposure to the language andthe degree of motivation is very high.

Therefore, although ‘younger is better’is an argument which may hold with theyoung children of migrant parents, forexample, it will not necessarily apply inthe kind of formally-organised teachingsituation which most of us work in.

The question of evidenceIn research studies which compare olderand younger learners in the samesituation and under the same conditions,older learners consistently do better.From a whole body of research donesince the 1970s right up to the presentday (and summarised in eg McLaughlinor Marinova-Todd, Bradford-Marshalland Snow), evidence shows that it isolder learners who make more rapidprogress in much less time and are moreefficient learners. Penny Ur refers to twoclasses she taught, one starting at the

Is younger better?

6 • Issue 28 July 2003 • ENGLISH TEACHING professional • www.etprofessional.com •

� � � age of eight and one at the age of ten,and reports that, by the time theyreached 13 and moved up to secondaryschool, there was no perceptibledifference between the two. Similarly,David Nunan reports on languageprogramme evaluations that testedgroups of students aged 15, some ofwhom started learning English at theage of ten and some at the age of five,and again found no difference at age 15.

In summary, research studiesrepeatedly show that older learners havea better grasp of grammatical conceptswhich they can transfer to foreignlanguage learning. They have greatercognitive maturity and better developedlearning strategies and skills. They aremore efficient at acquiring facts andconcepts and have more practice atnegotiating, turn-taking and sustainingconversations. All this combined makesthem much better, faster learners thanchildren, who learn considerably moreslowly and with much greater effort.

Marinova-Todd et al say: ‘Typically,the early elementary FL course will beable to cover only half as much material ina year as the middle school course, whichin turn will progress much more slowlythan the secondary or university courses’.

Similarly, Sharpe says, citing arecent research survey from a range ofEuropean countries, ‘there is noconclusive evidence yet that early foreignlanguage teaching makes a substantialdifference to children’s attainment atsecondary school’.

Penny Ur concludes: ‘If I’m incharge of allotting foreign languageteaching hours, I’ll invest most of them inthe older classes where I’ll get a betterreturn for my investment’.

In the face of the evidence and theseviews, we need to ask ourselves why wepersist in the belief that teaching childrena foreign language at an ever younger ageis a valuable enterprise. What is the ‘returnfor investment’ that we’re looking for?

The question of experienceIt seems to me that, in attemping toanswer these questions, we need to lookbeyond narrowly-defined, linguistic‘returns’, measured in terms of snap-shotpictures of language knowledge andproduction, to the intrinsic value of theexperience of starting to learn a foreignlanguage at a young age – openingwindows of the mind – and the wider andmore diffuse benefits that this can bring.

We need to have a broader, longer-term vision of the ‘returns’ we seek. Myviews of the potential for ‘younger’ tobe ‘better’ in foreign language courses atschool are summarised in the webdiagram below. They are grouped intothree broad areas as follows:

1 Characteristics of young childrenvs older learners

While there may not be a ‘magic’ age forstarting a foreign language, there is nodoubt that young children are in acrucial formative phase of their social,psychological, physical, emotional andcognitive development. This maypositively influence and benefitlanguage learning in formal languageteaching situations.

2 Potential benefits to theindividual and society

Over the short and long term, thepotential personal and academic benefitsto the individual are huge. There are alsoclear potential benefits to society in termsof citizenship, democracy, tolerance,

peace and an enhanced economy througha better-trained workforce. The goodnews here also is the correlation betweenthe actual length of time spent studying aforeign language and proficiency in thelong run (see eg Curtain and Pesola),with particularly positive beneficialeffects on the development of memory,listening skills and pronunciation.

3 The learning context of the primary school

Primary schools generally provide anideal context for a whole learningexperience appropriately structured tomeet children’s needs. Through ‘learningby doing’, language competence can bebuilt up gradually and naturally andprovide the basis for more abstract,formal learning in secondary school.After all, no one ever suggests postponingthe age of starting to learn mathsbecause it will be easy to catch up later.

From the three broad areas identified inthe web, we can see that, potentially, theconditions for ‘younger’ to be ‘better’do exist in formal teaching-learningsituations. However, in my view, whetherit will be truly worthwhile in the longterm depends on two crucial factors:how it’s done and what happens after.

How it’s doneAs Shelagh Rixon has said, what countsis not an ‘optimal age’, but ‘optimalconditions’. These include not onlythings such as the way the targetlanguage is valued within the society,but also what happens inside theclassroom itself. On page 7 is a checklistof ingredients which I think help toensure that ‘younger is better’ in thelocal context in which I work. You maylike to look at them and decide a) if you

Is younger better?

Opening windows of the mind

Easier tomotivate

Plasticity ofthe brain

Openness todifferences

Less self-conscious

‘natural sieve’ or ‘tuning in’hypothesis (Aitchison)

‘early start immunisation against laternegative attitudes’ (Sharpe)

Congruence between children’slanguage and conceptual level

Communicative /linguistic skills

Life-longlearning

‘apprenticeship of language learning’(Hawkins)

Harmony between primary and ELTmethodology

Metalinguistic skillsCognitive skills

Learning skillsand strategies

Other areas oflearning

Socio-culturalawareness

Identity andself-concept

Citizenship

Ability toimitate sounds

Flexibleattitudes

Younger is better

Characteristics of children vs older learners

Learning context of primary

school

Potential benefits to

individual andsociety

• www.etprofessional.com • ENGLISH TEACHING professional • Issue 28 July 2003 • 7

think they also apply in your context,b) which one(s) you think are mostimportant and c) if you don’t teachchildren, how many of the criteria mayalso apply to older learners as well. (Mypersonal answer to b) can be found atthe end of this article.)

Younger is better when ...● learning is natural● learning is contextualised and part of

a real event● learning is interesting and enjoyable● learning is relevant● learning is social● learning belongs to the child● learning has a purpose for the child● learning builds on things the child

knows● learning makes sense to the child● the child is challenged appropriately● learning is supported appropriately● learning is part of a coherent whole● learning is multi-sensory● the child wants to learn● learning is active and experiential● learning is memorable● learning allows for personal,

divergent responses● learning takes account of multiple

intelligences● the learning atmosphere is relaxed

and warm● there’s a sense of achievement

What happens afterFor early foreign language teaching tobe ultimately successful, there is acrying need for coherent primary andsecondary policies to provide forprogression and continuity throughoutthe school years. Such policies need tobe reflected in language planning andcurricula, which should build on whatchildren know by the end of primaryschool rather than require them to startagain. They need to be reflected inevaluation and assessment programmeswhich use appropriate instruments andobjectives at each age and stage. Theyalso need to be reflected in an increasedawareness and understanding betweenteachers and schools. On the one hand,primary school teachers may often notbe aware of how to prepare their pupilsfor secondary school and, on the other,secondary school teachers often find ithard to ‘tap in’ to what the childrencoming up from primary school alreadyknow.

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In conclusion, although there is not awater-tight case for saying that ‘youngeris better’ in formal teaching-learningsituations, the potential is certainlythere. Whether this potential is realiseddepends on a range of factors and moreresearch needs to be done. In themeantime, we need to keep the richerpicture in mind and embrace languagetraining as an integral part of children’swhole development and education. Long-term, drip-feed, foreign language coursesstarting from a very young age are hereto stay. In my view, as we become moreproficient in delivering them, these willnot only increasingly produce competentspeakers of other languages but will,above all, open windows of the mind inways that, I suspect, we can only nowbegin to glimpse.

c.read@arrakis.es

Carol Read is ateacher, teacher trainerand writer based inMadrid. Her mostrecent publications areHere’s Robby!, Hello,Robby Rabbit andSuperworld (with co-author Ana Soberón,Macmillan) and InstantLessons: Fairy Tales(Penguin Longman).

(My personal answer to b) is ‘the child wants tolearn’, which underlines the importance ofmotivation. As the saying goes, You can lead ahorse to water, but you can’t make it drink. In myview, making children ‘thirsty’ for learning in theprimary years is one of the keys to long-termsuccess.)

Aitchison, J Reith Lectures 1996,quoted in Hawkins (1996) and Sharpe(2001)

Curtain, H and Pesola, C Languagesand Children: Making the Match (2ndedition) Addison-Wesley 1994

Hawkins, E (Ed) 30 Years of LanguageTeaching CILT 1996

Marinova-Todd, S H, Bradford-Marshall,D and Snow, C ‘Three misconceptionsabout age and L2 learning’ TESOLQuarterly (34/1) 2000

McLaughlin, B Second LanguageAcquisition in Childhood: Vols 1 & 2Erlbaum 1984, 1985

Nunan, D ‘An Interview with DavidNunan’ IATEFL TTEd SIG Newsletter3/2002

Rixon, S Young Learners of English:Some Research Perspectives Longman1999

Sharpe, K Modern Foreign Languages inthe Primary School Kogan Page 2001

Ur, P ‘Check it out’ ENGLISH TEACHING

professional (21) October 2001

Although there is no researchevidence from long-term, drip-feedcourses to support the points in theweb on page 6, my current classroomexperience with three to seven yearolds in a state school in Spainconvinces me utterly of the value ofthese potential ‘returns’. I will illustratethis with three stories from my classeswhich exemplify different points.

Enhanced pronunciation skillsIn my class of five year olds, at thestart of an activity, I hear a child say‘Listen. Quiet now, please!’, imitating mygestures, voice and intonation exactly.I turn round quickly and the thought ofparody passes through my head, eventhough this seems unlikely at the ageof five. It isn’t parody. The child isdoing my classroom management forme (one of the best strategies I know!)and just has my voice, accent andintonation off to a tee!

Developing learning strategiesIn my class of four year olds, we’relearning more colours. I hold upsomething white and several childrencall out blank. They’ve recently learntthat elefante in Spanish is elephant, sothere’s a pretty good chance blancomay turn out to be blank. They’realready brilliant little linguists,cognitively engaged in strategicguessing at every moment, and with adefinite feel and intuition for the wayEnglish may work.

Developing empathy andunderstanding of others

Mohammed is a Moroccan boy in myclass of four year olds. Recentlyarrived in Spain, he doesn’t speakeither Spanish or English and he’sfinding it tough. One day when he’sabsent, I talk to the children (inSpanish) about how we can helpMohammed. They’re full of ideas: playwith him, sit with him, share theirsnacks, and then one little boy pipesup ‘We can help Mohammed speakSpanish like you help us with English.’‘How’s that?’ I ask, intrigued to heartheir views. ‘By showing us picturesand speaking slowly’ comes theresponse. Thus it is that, through theirown experience of learning a foreignlanguage, these children are able tounderstand and empathise with how itmight feel not to speak their own.

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