Teach English in Zhiping Zhen - Chongqing

1st language vs 2nd language acquisitionIn my studies of English philology I attended a course that dealt with the interesting topic of how and to which success young and adult learners acquire a new language. It is fascinating how quickly and naturally children absorb their first language with all its complex grammatical rules and come to master it, no matter if it is English, Arabic, japanese or Zulu. As adults we can not remember how we learned our first language, because it happened unconsciously. In comparison, learning a foreign language requires a conscious cognitive effort in order to understand its structures and rules. But what is learning a second language like for children? And how can the tefl teacher adjust their knowledge of children?s 2nd language acquisition to their teaching? The age is an important factor regarding the effort and success of language acquisition. Lenneberg?s Critical Period Hypothesis claims that there is a fixed span of years during which language learning can take place effortlessly and completely successful. According to him, that critical period ends around puberty, due to structural reorganizations that occur within the brain during puberty. Children seem to absorb a second language just as effortlessly and naturally as their first language. Whereas most children who are surrounded by a second language at an early age can acquire this language with nativelike competence, adults often acquire only an incomplete competence of the second language, although their cognitive abilities are much higher developed than those of children. It seems like the more complex our cerebral structures become with increasing age, the more difficult it becomes to learn a new language and the more conscious effort must be invested. The tefl teacher must bear in mind the different ways adults and children approach a new language. Adults usually choose to learn the language, are prepared to work with a course book, get homework, learn vocabulary and be lectured on language specific rules. Although, like younger learners, they appreciate an interesting and fun approach including games, pictures, etc., adults often want to understand how the language works and expect the teacher to provide them with useful facts and explanations. In short, adults learn a new language consciously and not just by mere exposure to the language but also by memorizing rules. As their attention span is higher than that of younger learners, adding to the fact that they are usually very motivated to learn the language, they can concentrate better on the teacher?s explanations and write down all the information they get. However, the teacher must take into account that also adults like entertaining lessons that are not dominated by lectures. The young learners? span of attention is much lower. They are more energetic and more likely to get distracted. The teacher should make the lessons as much fun and varied as possible in order to distract the children from the fact that they are mainly there to learn the language. However, teachers might worry that a lesson too dominated by games and fun activities might have a negative outcome for the children?s learning process. But if we bear in mind that the children?s first language acquisition is based on subconscious absorption and reproduction by mere exposure to the language, and that second language acquisition works in a similar way during the critical period, we need not worry about not lecturing or correcting enough. The children?s desire to speak the language comes naturally with the exposure to it just as they overcome intitial mistakes by wanting to imitate adults? way of speaking, so the teacher?s work is mainly to create an environment in which the children enjoy speaking and playing with the language, the way they usually also learn their first language. The tefl teacher?s knowledge about the different ways adults and children acquire a new language is essential to the way they must approach the class. It helps them become sensitive to the children?s needs to play with the language rather than work with it and the fact that the high effort to learn a new language with often imperfect results can be frustrating for adult learners. The teacher should encourage adults to learn to speak fluently and not to try to become nativelike.