I like Google Alerts. It always throws up some interesting stuff.
This one came from my "Languages" alert and is a Forbes article based on an interview with Noam Chomsky, noted linguist.
In the article he speculates that the learning of a language has a critical period for development, and that for languages this could be from birth to around puberty.
If you have learned a language by that time, you will be able to learn more languages later, but probably in a different way, and maybe by connecting it to the languages that you do know.
I'm sure most language teachers would agree with this and indeed anecdotal evidence nearly always concurs. How difficult do adults find it to acquire a second language?
From birth children seem to absorb language (mother tongue) with no need for formal lessons and the idea of language lessons has always been to try to include as much target language as possible to attempt in some way to replicate this. However as kids get older it becomes more difficult for them to absorb any new language.
This is why it is important that kids get the chance to learn a 2nd language in primary school, whilst they are still at their most receptive. It is also important that at this stage they get a chance to really enjoy a second language. In my experience most kids really do enjoy language study in the primary stages.
However, as a secondary teacher I fear that all too often we seem to slog this fun out of language study. Why? Is it because we start to get into the nitty gritty of language, i.e. grammar and it becomes boring? Is it because we often have to deal with a class in S1 where kids arrive at totally different stages in their language learning; some at zero because they have changed language and some for whom a lot of the S1 topics have already been covered in primary? Unfortunately as a common denominator we often start at the basics again.
What can we do to resolve this problem? To my mind TRANSITION becomes all important. Somehow secondary teachers need to be able to latch onto the enthusiasm of the primary school whilst still pushing the boundaries of linguistic knowledge? But how?
Could this be where emerging tech should get involved, by enhancing the creative skills of these kids? Rather than starting with a text book why not use kids prior knowledge and introduce them to the delights of podcasting to introduce themselves. Or use web resources such as glogster, scrapblog start to compile e-folios. Lets try to build on the creativity kids often get to express in primary to ensure that they remain motivated to study a language throughout secondary. AND let us encourage those who may not be naturally gifted linguists to be as creative as possible with the language that they know. Lets allow CREATIVITY and COMMUNICATION to be the by-words rather than 100% accuracy.
Photos:
"Talking at Google: Languages on the Internet" by Stephanie Booth
"transition" by SGT Butler (deployed)
Technorati Tags: primary, secondary, languagelearning, creativity, communication
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