Multilingual learning

The topic of this composition is going to deal with is the process of multilingual learning. First, this essay is going to start by defining the term of multilingualism, using the definition of professor Franceschini. Secondly, it is going to be seen the relations between multiculturalism and multilingualism. Thirdly, it is going to be discussed the advantages and disadvantages of having multilingual learning and the benefits and issues that can be produced, if someone becomes multilingual. Finally, I will use my personal experience to show the influence that multilingual learning can have on an individual student.

The term multilingualism is usually addressed in many books, but nevertheless, it is difficult to define it. Professors Aroni and Hufeisen (Aroni and Hufeisen, 2009) use the definition of Franceschini to define it:

‘The capacity of societies, institutions, groups, and individuals to engage on a regular basis in space and time with more than one language in everyday life…  Multilingualism is a product of the fundamental human ability to communicate in a number of languages. Operational distinctions may then be drawn between social, institutional, discursive, and individual multilingualism. (Franceschini, 2009, p.33–34)’

In order to better understand Franceschini’s definition, both authors made a few necessary comments on it. The first one is that the term ‘language’ needs to be considered in a neutral way, this means that it can refer to our everyday language or to the standard language, as well as, regional languages or dialects. The second and third comment they make refers to the moment this term is already established in the society, institutions, and individuals, and it is related to the scientific analysis of multilingualism. In their second comment, they explain that this term cannot be applied to everyday interactions and treat two interlocutors as two separate individuals, they say that researchers must consider the context of the interaction and each example must receive specific consideration. In the third comment, they assert that multilingualism needs to be distinguished from bilingualism in order to do this type of analysis because they assert that there are some times in which researchers have only focused on the two languages they are analysing in question, but they do not ask the participants about the possibility of speaking more than two languages. (Aroni and Hufeisen, 2009)

Once having exposed the term of multilingualism, this essay will relate it to the concept of multiculturalism. According to Goral and Conner (Goral and Conner, 2013) individuals who speak or use more than one language usually, belong to–or are familiar with – more than one culture. As a consequence, they can be also considered multicultural. Moreover, cultural considerations can be determinant for the evaluation of multilingual individuals and they will be taken into account. It is, thus, obvious that the study subjects of these types of researchers are highly heterogeneous.

However, there are times in which multiculturalism and multilingualism do not go together, particularly in the case of language and cultural minorities. It is for this reason that in the 21st century, multilingual and multicultural competencies will be necessary to function completely. For the UNESCO International Commission on Education for the twenty-first century, quality education – including the multicultural and multilingual ones– cannot be fully achieved without understanding some previous tensions, such as the tension between the universal and the individual or the tension between the need for competition and the concern for equality of opportunity, among others (Alidou et al., 2011).

In environments where multilingualism and multiculturalism are well seen and represent education resources, the tensions are reinterpreted, different languages and cultures do not represent an obstacle and they can be related to each other. Thus someone starts by learning one’s own language within a particular cultural setting, such as family and community, and in the case, one continues to learn other languages, he or she will be learning other cultures at the same time. Furthermore, by doing this, one expands one’s capacity to learn and understand the connections between global and local knowledge and communities, changing the world's point of view through communication and multilingual competence (Alidou et al., 2011).

Consequently, there should be a general awareness of the language aspects of learning. To do that, there must be a definition of a multilingual country and plurilingual student in order to see the different perspectives that can be taken. With this, the aim is to remember facts that teachers are familiar with and begin with representations that they have already experienced themselves. The dimensions they should later include in these experiences are, for instance, the levels of language competence, or a comparative approach to language and linguistic aspects, among others (Hansen-Pauly, 2012).

The next stage in this process is to create challenging situations that teachers will have to cope with. This can be performed by analysing different views on multilingual learning and find the possible difficulties they may confront, such as considering that foreign languages for subject learning can involve extra effort and require more time for learning. Another fact to take into account is that the acquisition of a multilingual learning is equally successful than a monolingual one, so there must be an option for those who want multilingual learning and another for those who do not want one.  It is also required for this multilingual learning, an additional concentration on the learner’s parts, having an active involvement in the subject, because teachers generally do not have time to focus on a deeper analysis of learning materials due to the shortness of the school year, so it is a learner’s task to make this deeper and closer analysis. Finally, motivation is also essential: teachers, parents and learners must be aware of the advantages of language development in subject learning (Hansen-Pauly, 2012).

Once the multilingual learning process works and students become bilingual and subsequently multilingual, it is important to know the new challenges these individuals are going to deal with. In the case of multilingual people, they have a special challenge when they hear a new word, this means that if a monolingual person hears a word, he will only need to compare it with a single stock of arbitrary phonemes and meaning rules and if this person wants to utter, he will draw it from that single stock. Nevertheless, if the subject is multilingual, he or she will need several stocks separate. The example that the author shows us is the following one, if a Spanish/Italian bilingual person hears the phonemes b-u-rr-o, he or she will instantly interpret to be either “donkey”, if the context is Spanish, or “butter”, if it is Italian. Multilingual people participating in a multilingual conversation will switch frequently and unpredictably between the stocks they have. As a result, they are constantly and unconsciously practicing in the use of the executive function system (Diamond, 2010).

Moreover, far from being a problem, scientific researchers have shown that multilingualism provides benefits to individuals along with all their lives, from their childhood to adulthood and even in adults whose cognitive capacities are declining. Young babies who are in bilingual or multilingual circumstances are not confused by this, but they develop the ability to discriminate among the languages they hear and they more open to learning new languages than their counterparts that are exposed to only one language. It has also been proved that adult learners are able to acquire sensitivity to the grammar of a second language despite the age. Furthermore, the fact of having code-switching reflects a sophisticated cognitive strategy that enables bilingual and multilingual learners to exploit their multilingual speech in all the languages they can speak. In the last two decades, it has been revered all the older false believes about multilingualism, and now for language scientists, multilingual speakers are seen as the best way for understanding the way that language experience shapes the mind and brain (Diamond, 2010).

From personal experience, I am going to explain my multilingual learning experience. Although I am able to speak three languages and I am learning a fourth one, I do not consider a multilingual speaker and I will later explain why. My native language is Spanish and the second language I started to learn was English. Like most of my classmates, I started at school, but the difference was that my father was an English teacher, so he started to teach me English at home. He didn’t exactly teach what I was learning at school, instead of this, he gave me further material, such as other books or English films. When I was a little older (still at school) he started teaching me French, because his idea was that I entered a French Lyceum, but this was not possible, so at the age of fourteen I continued studying it in the official language school of my city. Apart from learning both languages at school and at home, I also travelled to France and to the British Isles. First, I started by going to summer camps in France, and then I went to an international language school in both places. I have to point out that this was and still is on holiday, so it was not for so much time. Finally, three years ago I started to learn German at the official language school, and even if this year I have not had the opportunity to continue learning it due to my Erasmus, I will continue to learn it once the Erasmus has finished.

Having already explained my multilingual experience I will give my opinion on what I consider a multilingual speaker should be. My understanding of what a multilingual speaker should be is that person who is able to speak and think in more than two languages. The reason why I say this is because if a person who can only speak a foreign language by constructing her sentences or forming his ideas from its own native language, he or she is only translating his native language into a different one, but not thinking in two different languages, thus he wouldn’t be a bilingual or multilingual speaker. It is therefore why I do not consider myself a bilingual speaker. Some teachers I have had also told me that you become bilingual or multilingual once you have dreamt in that foreign language you are studying for and another teacher told me once that you are able to speak in another language, once you can get angry speaking it, so in my view, everybody has its own opinion of what bilingual and multilingual is.

Summing up, in this essay it has been discussed what multilingualism is and how it is related to the notion of multiculturalism. It has also been analysed the several processes of multilingual learning education and how teachers and learners should deal with it at school in order to have a better result. Moreover, it has been exposed the several benefits and issues that a multilingual education can contribute to us. Finally, I have explained my multilingual learning education and I have given my own definition of a multilingual speaker.

 

References

Alidou, H., Glanz, C. & Nikièma, N. (2011) “Quality multilingual and multicultural education for lifelong learning”, International Review of Education Vol. 57, p. 530–531

Aronin, Larissa & Hufeisen, Britta (eds.), The exploration of multilingualism: Development of research on L3, multilingualism and multiple language acquisition. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2009.

Diamond, J. (2010). The benefits of multilingualism. Science 330, 332–333.

Franceschini, R. 2009. Genesis & development of research in multilingualism: perspectives for future research. In the Exploration of Multilingualism: Development of Research on L3, Multilingualism and Multiple Language Acquistion. Aka Applied Linguistics series 6, L. Aronin & B. Hufeisen (eds), 27-61. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Hansen-Pauly, M. A. (2012). Teacher education: Language issues in multilingual educational contexts: Sensitizing subject student teachers for language issues and cultural perspectives. 13-14. Luxembourg: Council of Europe.

THE CRITICAL PERIOD HYPOTHESIS

THE CRITICAL PERIOD HYPOTHESIS

Second language acquisition (SLA) is affected by many different factors in its process of acquiring a foreign language. Some of them are considered common to every non-native speaker and they can affect in a different manner each individual. The element that will be analysed in this paper will be the age of onset (AO), a biological factor that is considered a strong predictor of success in SLA. According to Granena (2013), whilst L2 morphology and syntax is often proceeded faster by adolescents or adults through early stages, which is a rate advantage, the expected level of ultimate L2 attainment generally diminishes with the increase of AO. With regard to the age effects, there is less agreement between researchers: variation in the quantity or quality of input to younger and older learners, differences in their affective profiles or cognitive maturity are some of these effects discussed by experts.

One of the most known hypotheses that supporting this is the Critical Period Hypothesis (CPH). This theory is used with two different meanings explained by Pallier (2007). The first explanation is based on an empirical hypothesis denoting that humans are more efficient at language learning in the first years of life (it can also be applied to L1 acquisition). Moreover, it is an important predictor of ultimate proficiency, because the older an individual starts to learn a language the smaller the possibilities of reaching a native-like competence this person will have. The second argument stands on the conviction that an age-related decline in neural plasticity is the cause of increasing difficulties in language learning. These two meanings must be distinguished because, according to the first meaning, the reason for not achieving a native-like proficiency can be due to other causes different from irreversible neural plasticity changes, whilst the supporters of the second meaning believe that this loss of plasticity is because of maturational factors.

However, other researchers suggested that it could also be due to the outcome of language acquisition itself. Penfield (1965) advocated that before the child begins to speak, the cortex is blank and nothing is written on it. Over time, this begins to be written and normally not erased. For the author, at the age of ten or twelve connections produced within the cortex have now been established and fixed in the speech of the individual. An alternative theory supported by Pinker (1994) asserted that once the circuitry of language acquisition has been used, it should be removed if it becomes an issue for keeping it. All neural tissue used beyond its point of usefulness is a good starting point for being recycled.  Therefore, both theories had a point in common: once the young learner has acquired the language or languages around him or her, the neural modifications are impossible to reverse.

Pallier (2007) asserts that there have been many studies carried out for the CPH. Some of these studies were performed with animals that required depriving them from some relevant stimulus during a period of time. On the other side, experimentation with humans for the L1 acquisition has not been accomplished for understandable reasons, as it would not be ethical, because it would signify the denial of language exposure for children. Notwithstanding, some studies have been performed with abandoned children who had little language exposure at first, and observations suggested that their language skills were limited even after language instruction. Other human studies performed in this area have been accomplished with groups of deaf people who learned sign language as an L1 at different ages. The results showed that those people who were exposed to sign language in their first years of life had a better control of the language than those later exposed. Eventually, those who later started (in mid-childhood) performed better than those who were exposed first when they were ten or more.

Although it could be asserted that critical neural changes take place during the puberty period, it seems that it can occur much earlier. Studies conducted with deaf children who received cochlear implants (an auditory technological device surgically implanted to stimulate the auditory nerve in order to transmit acoustic information to the central auditory system) displayed that there are beneficial effect of earlier implementation in children when they are already 1 to 3 years old (McConkey Robbins, Burton Koch, Osberger, Zimmerman-Philips & Kishon-Rabin, 2004).

Another domain for collecting data connected to the CPH is SLA. As stated by Snow (1978), there are two types of research designs that can be expected from this sort of research. The first one is by comparing second language acquisition to first language acquisition. The second one involves comparing SLA across a wide age range. Diverse studies have shown that second language acquisition is similar to first language acquisition, with regard to the order in which rules and structures are acquired (Dulay & Burt, 1974), of the learning strategies employed (Cook, 1973) and of the errors made (Taylor, 1975).

Moreover, other studies contemplated by Ervin-Tripp (1974) and Fathman (1975) that used the second strategy displayed that older children (even adults) proceeded faster L2 morphology and syntax. There were even other studies accomplished by Asher & Price (1967) showed a faster listening comprehension by older children. However, rather than showing an agreement in the obtained results, they revealed wide discrepancies in some aspects. For instance, in pronunciation, there were some studies that displayed a better pronunciation in older subjects, whereas others showed a negative effect of age. There were even other studies in which there were found cases where there were older learners without accent in their L2, as well as cases who maintained their native accent.

Although the studies observed so far do not endorse the predictions established by the CPH, for Snow (1978) this hypothesis cannot still be rejected due to the problems that will be explained. The first issue that these studies contained was that they have only looked to a restricted age range. For example, in Fathman’s study the ages were between 6 and 15, in the case of Ervin-Tripp the ages were from 4 to 9, and with respect to the case of Asher and Prise, they only took 8 adults. The second problem they presented was that age differences were not assessed longitudinally, since all the age differences found were given at a random point after the beginning of SLA, rather than having constant differences in the rate of acquisition. Therefore, the only type of study that can provide a general idea of the age differences in rate acquisition or in ultimate achievement is a longitudinal one. In addition to this, a fairly limited range of second language abilities were tested in most studies and the CPH seeks to test different language abilities separately, since the acquisition of each ability may affect differently on brain plasticity. By doing this, contradictory findings could be explained and results would be more accurate.

Another sort of studies concerning the CPH in SLA have been those who have investigated the possible effects of age at immigration. According to Stevens (2006), these researches were made due to the high interest in the possibility of finding critical periods in language learning.  However, the process of learning a language takes some time, thus scholars had to take into consideration the effect of immigrants’ length of residence in the destination country with the purpose of isolating the effects of age at onset of L2 learning. For doing these kinds of studies, researchers took into account three variables, “age at immigration”, “length of residence”, and “age at testing”. Nevertheless, these three variables are linearly interconnected, so investigators had to ignore one or two variables in their respective studies in order to solve this problem.

The results provided by these researches showed for instance that length of residence in the host country hugely affected immigrants’ levels of proficiency in their L2 (at least in the first several years after their arrival to the receiving country). According to researchers, this was due to the fact that there were processes related to senescence and life-cycle stages. Immigrants’ ages at the time observations also took an important role in their investigations. Nonetheless, as they expected before doing researches, the three variables were impossible to consider simultaneously, and unfortunately, there are no easy statistical techniques that can disentangle the linear dependency among them. Chronological age was the variable that was most often omitted in the analysis, because of its difficulty for being followed (Stevens, 2006).

To sum up, it can be asserted that the age of onset has an important role to play in SLA. Moreover, it has also been observed that for learning a language the younger is usually the better. Although research will be better performed in the future, thanks to technology improvements and the correction of previous research errors, in this moment, it cannot be stated the exact age where individuals will not be able to learn a language or acquire a high proficiency language level, but instead of this, we could assert that there is a sensitive period for learning a second language around puberty, which will not be the same afterwards.

REFERENCES

Asher, J., & Price, B. (1967) The learning strategy of the total physical response: some age differences. Child Development, 1219-1227.

Cook, V. J. (1973) The comparison of language development in native children and foreign adults. International Review of Applied Linguistics, 13-28.

Dulay, H., & Burt, M. (1974) Natural sequences in child second language acquisition. Working Papers in Bilingualism, 71-98.

Ervin-Tripp, S. (1974) Is second language learning like the first? TESOL Quarterly, 111-127.

Fathman, A. (1975) The relationship between age and second language productive ability. Language Learning, 245-253.

Granena, G., & Long, M. (2013) Age of onset, length of residence, language aptitude, and ultimate L2 attainment in three linguistic domains. Second Language Research, 29(3), 311-343. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/43103927.

McConkey Robbins, 4., Burton Koch, D., Osberger, M. J., Zimmerman-Philips, S. & Kishon-Rabin, L.(2004). "Effect of age at cochlear implantation on auditory skill development in infants and toddler”. Archives of Otolaryngology Head & Neck Surgery, 130, 570-574.

Pallier, C. (2007) Critical periods in language acquisition and language attrition. In Language Attrition: Theoretical Perspectives, 155–168.

Penfield, W. (1965) “Conditioning the uncommitted cortex for Language learning”. Brain, 88,787-798.

Pinker, S. (1994). The Language Instinct. New York, NY: W. Morrow and Co.

Snow, C., & Hoefnagel-Höhle, M. (1978) The Critical Period for Language Acquisition: Evidence from Second Language Learning. Child Development, 1114-1128. Retrieved from: http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/1128751.

Stevens, Gillian. (2006) The Age‐Length‐Onset Problem in Research on Second Language Acquisition Among Immigrants. Language Learning, 671 - 692. Retrieved from: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9922.2006.00392.x.

Taylor, B. P. (1975). The use of overgeneralisation and transfer learning strategies by elementary and intermediate students of ESL. Language Learning, 73-107.