The Critical Period Hypothesis Revisited: The Implications for Current Foreign

Language Teaching to Young Learners

Neurolinguistics arguments
An individual reaches its brain adult capacity by puberty, this is according to the
critical period hypothesis which suggests that the acquisition of a language should
be before puberty.
It is then established that if there is a critical period, a second language learning must
have different characteristics (Johnson & Newport, 1989). “CPH has not been
interpreted adequately in some cases, where it was assumed that by puberty you are
“over the hill” to learn a second language successfully” (Brown, 1993). According
to the CPH, the acquisition of a language can only happen between the ages of two
and puberty. Krashen (1973) answers to this claim stablishing that lateralization of
the brain is complete before puberty. Krashen has investigated children in different
stablishes and ages and he has come to the conclusion that there is not a significant
change in the degree on lateralization between the ages of four and nine.

Cognitive and Affective Arguments

The optimal distance model is the affective component that Brown (1980) highlights
in the CPH. “Most of us have observed that children can learn second languages
more easily than adults. And most of us assumed that adults are rather inefficient
and unsuccessful when compared to children” (Brown, 1980).
The cognitive and affective arguments are more convincing than the physiological
brain related ones, but they both agree that the challenge to learn a first or second
language is age-related.
Brown (1980) has stablished four aspects of the optimal distance model:
1. “Acculturation: He claims that there are four stages of the acculturation
process that people face while assimilating in a new culture: period of
excitement and euphoria, culture shock, gradual recovery, assimilation or
adaptation.
2. Anomie: As a result of learning a second language and being exposed to, or
living in, the second language culture people may have feelings, such as social
uncertainty or dissatisfaction.
3. Social Distance: “Social distance refers to the cognitive and affective
proximity of two cultures which come into contact with an individual.” (p.
158) Distance, here, represents the differences between the two cultures.
4. Perceived Social Distance: Each person perceives the same cultural
environment differently. Their perception is through the “filters of their own
 world” (Brown, 1980, p. 160), then, no matter how biased their opinion may
be, they act upon their perception”.
The third stage in the acculturation process starts when the person gains skillful
fluency in the second language.

Younger Children versus Older Children

The universal principals regarding FL learning for a child and a SL learning for an
adult is the tendency to simplification of the rules. This idea is supported by “studies
that stablish that the rule-system of a language learner is not a result of imitation”
(Pag. 759)
A study held by Snow (1983) showed that the differences between children and
adults were not significant. She tested 52 subjects aging 3 and a half and fifty-five
and “The tests result on communicative skill-story comprehension and storytelling
did not show significant age differences”. (Pag. 59)

When the test was adults versus teenagers, the result showed that the adults scored
worse. Snow (1983) understands that the reason is the lack of interaction the adults
have with the language whereas, “children had six hours in school and always played
with Dutch children who didn’t know English”. Furthermore, Snow (1983) “believes
that, adults are better language learners, because they are also better in most of the
other learning tasks, when compared with children”.

Krashen, Long, and Scarcella (1979) consider that adults and older children are
generally better at acquiring a SL than children. Children are to be more prescient
faster when they arrive to a new country but with time they don’t show a higher level
of improvement because of their resident station. “The studies comparing older and
younger children are again short-term studies which showed that if both groups are
exposed to second language for the same period of time and in natural environments
older children learn syntax and morphology faster”. (Pag. 760) Further studies show
that misconceptions about relationship of the age of the language learner and the L2
learning is discussed through review of the literature.

Marinova-Todd, Marshall, and Snow (2000) answer to Krashen evaluation of the

previous CPH and argue that “this was not the case and that literature shows
examples of older learners learn more than younger learners when the time is kept
constant and actually younger learners learn more slowly and with more effort”.
(Pag. 760) These authors also argue that available data is not adequate to guess the
right nature of the brain operating and the language behavior. A third misconception
accounted by Marinova-Todd, Marshall, and Snow (2000) they argue “that age of
the learners is not the only factor that affects L2 proficiency. Social, psychological,
educational and similar other factors affect proficiency in addition to the learners’
age”. (Pag. 760)
Discussion

CPH has been well investigated but the age issue is yet not established, especially
because studies have only been done within ESL environment. Although authors like
Ellis (1985) understand that age dos not have an effect on the SLA route regarding
the acquisition result.
Differences between children, older children and adults are accounted in many ways,
contextual factors, new environment, culture, way of living, and more. “The
difference of children from adolescents and adults in EFL contexts is that they do
not have a purpose for learning another language when they can perfectly
communicate via their mother tongue”. (Pag. 762) The CPH studies are not
conclusive but they provide with insights for the language educators understanding
of all the differences between ages and learning.

In particular, many factors may be taken into consideration when researching this
topic. Children and adults are different in numerous ways in regards to their life and
social arrangements. One of the main adversaries of a SL learner in adulthood is
time, if we take into consideration the responsibilities and life worries that an adult
has whereas children are exempted of, adults should be looked at as great learners.
Adults facilitate children’s learning possibilities, they have to facilitate them
themselves.
I take my own experience as an example, I work for 8 hours teaching Spanish, after
teaching I most get everything ready for the next day, lesson plans, investigations,
readings… After that I have a family which goes after the MA at this moment. If I
could dedicate my complete attention to this program, and I think I speak for
everyone in it, how would the results be different? What if the government paid this
program and also paid us to do it so that we became better educators, how would
that change our outcome? Is it possible that the stress we experience while doing all
our obligations make us better teachers and individuals? Or is this going to kill us
sooner? Would I love this program more if I had the time to invest in it? Or would
that be too easy and the disposition would be different?