LEARNINGA SECOND/ THIRD LANGTJAGE AT HOME Ai{D AT SCHOOL

lntroduction
There is an enormous variery in the world with regard to at what age, how, This chapter will outline some of and why children learn other languages. these circumstances,starting with natural acquisition of two languagesat a bit later but while birth, moving on to beginning to learn new languages still quite young. Important differencesbetween the demandsof learning a languagein informal situations such as everyday conversationsand more learning such as at school will be discussed. This brief overview of secondlanguagecontextswill compareESL (English asa secondlanguage) contexts where English is taught in an English environment and EFL (English as a foreign language) contexts where English is taught as a timetabledsubjectin a non-English environment.These comparisons are useful to teachersbecausethey can develop realistic expectationswith regard to both themselves and fieir learners,their achievements, opportunities, and limitations in their own conrexrs.

Early hilingualism
The earliestpossible chance to learn two languagesis to start at birth. This 'simultaneous early processis often referred to as the acquisition of two or sometimesmore languages. In a mixed nationality -"tii"g., for example, one parent may useFrench only with the children while the other parent uses English only. Suzanne Romaine, a well known researcherin the area of 'one bilingual studies, refers to this as the person one language' scenario (1995). S(hen ,this strategy is systematicallyfollowed by both parents, children can acquire two languagesat the same time. Differences bewveen the levels of competence in the nvo languageswill of course always be inevitable due to f".torc such aswhich lang,rageis dominant in the society and whether or not the parents speakor understand eachother's languages, Bilingual children, comparedto their monoiingual peers,generally3.ppear to develop more slowly in linguistic terms. For example, referring back to the

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Learning a second/third language at homeand at school developmentsof the first five yearsin Chaprer 2, bilingual children may sav their first words a little later and l."rn fewer o.roiL, and grammatical structures'Horvever,this is not strictly rrue of all bilinguals. Soire child.ren, r'vho have more exffoverted personalities and like taCng risks, might start talking jusr asearly asmonolinguals. Bilingual children go through aphaseofmixing the languages in the first rwo -r.p"r"te v-ears. Then, at around three years of age ,lr.y ,t"rt-ro the rwo languages and wilJ begin to address peoplJ in different l"rrg,r"g.s depending on their relevant ianguage background. Some researcherioirid., this the .ldy bilingual stage.However, when and to what extenr this happens also depends on social factors such as the extent to which parents .h. "*r"., childt attention to the existence of rwo languages and the attirude children acquire to the rwo.languages. Even in the case of early bilinguals, the development of both.languageswill continue in a balance d only if "r;y opPortunities are rggularif available to practise and develop competence in both langy$:r. schooling will be rn"jo, source of further d.rr.loprn.rrt. " Almost all bilingual children will grow up ro function in their dominant language, which is the medium of insuucrion at schoor. For a lortg time it was believed that learning rwo languagesat the same time was detrimental to childrent develop*.nt. Ho*.,r.i reie"rch in the last 30 years,especiallyin Canada, has now convincingly demonstrated that this is not the case. Merrill Swain and her colleagues iri banada haveshown that in fact quite the oppositeis true (seeSwainjoooU). Bilingualism is advantageous for children, especiallywith regard to *reir earlyiretalinguistic awareness'i.e. their abiliry to manipulate and label language. A, they are exposed to twolanguages,bilingual children aremore olhrrg,r"g. ryr..r*. Fo. "*"i. example, they realize earTier than monolinguals th"t wlrds aie arbitrary symbols and the same object can be referrJ to by using different labels. In generatthey are more consciousof ianguagestructures"and patterns an4 Iearnto reflect on theseearlier.

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Critical Period Hyp oth esis
Turning to tiose childrenwho do not start rwo languageb at birth, what are the benefits oflearninglanguages youn& i.e.still in Jhitdhood? Folkwisd.om holdsfiat childrenare,r.ty.,r...ssfuliJnguage learners. It hasbeenobserved repeatedlythat children who move ,o country pick up the new "norh.r language seemingly effortlessly and quickly asopposedtt th.i, pir..,r, *ho often find language learningmore of a chaile"g..rhi, observation led,to assr:.mptions about the advantages of startinglearninga secondlanguage

Learning a secondlthird language at home and at school young and also to a great deal of enthusiasmaround.the r.vorldfor introducing English in primary school or even earlier.One reasonwhy early languagelearning hasbecomeso popular is that many psycholinguists have 'sensitive explained the advantages by proposing a so called period' in childhood for ianguagelearning. Originally, Eric Lenneberg proposed the Critical Period H,vpothesis(CPH) (1957), which suggested tlat bra-in plasticitywasonly conduciveto language learning until puberry. Whilst this sffong position has been contested, thereseems to be someagreemenr *lat there is a sensitiveperiod for acquiring a secondlanguage. bhildr.r, *ho start younger than II-12 yearsof age,given advantageous learning circumsuch asplenty of input and interaction in an Englishenvironmenr, stances, are more likely to acquire English to native levels without an accent. Immersed children are motivated to be integrated into the language community and this is an important factor in their success.

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Isyounger better?
On balance,research into the advantages of younger learners, especiallyin -. formal non-English -*ho envjronments, is not so conclusivelypositive. If we io*p"r. *too ,,"rred younger in primary schools'with those who starteda bit later in secondary school,most studiesshowthat the advanrages of the early starterstend to disappea:by the time children are 76.In the summary of the European Uniont recommendationsin 1998 Christiane Blondin and her colleagues caution that younger learners'advanrage over olderlearners seems to be minimal. The advantages concernyoungchildren's intuitive graspoflanguageand their abiliry to be more attunedto the phonological system of the new language.The consensus is that children are sensitiveto the sounds and the rhythm of new languages and they enjoy copying new sounds and patterns of intonation. In acidition, younger learners are{ess anxiousand lessinhibited and, overall,they can spendmore time devoted to the ianguagecompared with those who start later. In the long term this longer period spenrlearning may havepositiveeffects. . At the sarnetime this report stresses that older learnersuse more efficient strategies, have a more mature conceptualworld to rely on, have a clearer sense of discourse and, more importantly, havea clearer sense ofwhy they are learning a new language.It seemsthat the advantagsolder ieilners enjoy can ultimately eompensatefor an early start. Adults and older learnersare more analytical and give attention to detail, which helps with language learning.The only areathat is difficult to compensate foiseems to be pronunciation but evenhere, cultural and identity issuesmay play a role. Adults and older children might not want to sound English becausethey want to preserve their own identity. There is another argumentwhich challengesthe supposedadvantages of an early start. There are some rare but exceptionally

Learning a second/third /anguage at homeanclat school successful cases of adults who start learning a second, languagequite late in life. In his review in 2001 David Singleton]a research.,ii..r".r,.a i1 agein languagelearning, cites severalstudies of exceptional adult learners who were mistaken for native speakers by native speaker.judges. This meansthat, wirh a greardealof dedication,it is possibleto learn language and to ",.Jorrd achievenative or near-nadvelevelsiven in adurthood

Learnirg secondlanguage in the playground " and at school

From info*al toformal contexts
Children's advantagesas language learners are mosr obvious in informal conrexts such as in the playground. They tend to pick up language in everyday situations from other children in their environm.rrt i.l"t"i*ly quickly becausethey want to play and make friends. Familiar routines and games offer great oPportunities for hearing the sarne language again and

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case of children,whoar5l111ing English r..o,id ranguag., i.r.h differ", " ences remainreievant. In 2000 a canadian researcher, Jirir cimmins, pub_ p9,wer lisheda book entitled I,anguage, and pedagoglt, hilirgool Childrenin the crossfre, in which he ierrie*ed research .,rid""rie abou"tschoolsecond. language learningand offeredadviceto teachers working in contexts where thereis a cultural diversiryofiearnersin the same class. H"ealsomakes a basic distinction berween..hoT.languageuse and .schoollanguage rrr. research summarized by Cummins ,ho*, that it takes..r,r.liloriger"r. to catch up with the academic languag_e skillsnecessary for succesrful p"rti.ipation in school discourse thanwith informai.orr,r.rrrrions. It -"y,"k. * lorrgasfive to seven yearsbeforechildren reachacademic levelscomparable to tiose of ativespeakers of the language._ Cummins' finding, i,rgg.rr r]r"i bili.rgualeducation canbevery beneficial for children*Lh "1ro ,.g"riio their general development, cognidve, meracognitive, and other skills.one factorwhich

Turkish child to Germany, or an Iranian child to the UK), after ashort silent period when they are absorbedin_listening to input, they can acquirethe socalled conversational genre or playgrotrrid t"lk f"irly quickly. thi, -."r* that they can communicate, make lriends, and functior, *.ll in everyday conversationsas quickly aswithin the first one or rwo years of arrival in the new country. 'Io master the language that is needed for school is quite a different mafter. Differences between.hoT._language environmenti and school language environments have akeady been diicussed in the previous chapter. In th.

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at homeand at school language Learninga second/third

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is to developchildren'smother tongue and important in this process seems secondlanguageliteracy skiils in parallel rather than neglecting the first for their mother tongue a:rd to make way for the second.Respect language that Cummins su_ggests ,,tppoti with their secondlanguageare essential. amount of efrort into educationalprogrammesneedto invest a considerable and motivating making this ptol.ss of catchingup asrewarding,suPPortive, will have to think hard about ,, portibl.. to h.ip thesechildren, teachers providing a rich languageenvironment where formal and scientific terms -d .otr.iprs are carefullyintroduced and explored,starting with informal that the children are alreadyfamiliar with. and words and phrases conceprs The work of PaulineGibbons (1995,2002) in Australiaofrersa range of interestedin managingmulticultural classrooms. practicalideasto teachers with content so the importanceof integratinglanguage Gibbotrr emphasizes that languageand curriculum knowledge can be developedhand in hand. This meansthat teachersneedto plan explicitly and carefuily their language For example,when teachingchildren about magnets,it is a good usein class. idea to start with language they already have for describing magnetic phenomena,suchas pull together'or pull apaft',and then introduce formal 'attfact' and'repel'. New terms and concePtsafe introduced i.r*, such as with carefulattention to both content and language.

Integrated secbndlanguagelearning
In all English-speakingcountries there is systematicsupport available to children who are learning English as their secondlanguagein the primary school.Although these children are immersed in a linguistically very rich suggests systematichelp and suPport, research environment and do receive patience. that the processof catching up takes a lot of time, effort, and Rhonda Oliver and her colleaguesin Australia, interested in childrent study in2A03.They conductedan interesting acquisition, language second investigated the language use of immigrant children who were aheady not to need any more proficient in English.Thesechildren were considered E,SL support as they were frrlly integrated into the curriculum. The study showsthat they still had significantlylower levelsof acquisition ofAustralian asked75 chtldren from peers.The researchers rermsthan their native speaker pictures the ages of eight and 13 to describe five ethnic backgroundsberween of objectsthat had Australiannames.For example,there was a picture of a to sayit was a crosswalk, pedestriancrossingand the children were expected which is the appropriateAustralian term. The findings showed that when prompted to usespecificrerms,the immigrant children used generic terms insteador simply indicatedthat they did not know thesewords.This study is and even languageacquisition is a long process a good reminder that second after many yearsin the environment, the immigrant childrens vocabulary

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Learninga second/third langtmge at bomeand at school

base is different from. native children's, for example, in relation to these culcuralrerms.

Learning English asa foreign language

In many other contextsin the world, however,when children start learning English, they are not immersed in an English environment and they are not learning English to make friends or fit into a new school and culture. They are learning English as a school subject in addition to maths, science,and other timetabled subjects.Compared to the circumstances of a child who is starting a new life abroad, children in non-English environments have limited opportunities to practise the language outside school and no immediate need or clear motivation to useand learn English. On the other hand, both parentsand teachersrecognizethe benefits of learning English and many governmentsopt for introducing a foreign languageinto their primary curriculum. Introducing children to a new languageoffers opportunities to widen their horizons and awaken their early enthusiasm and curiosiqyaboutlanguages.

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Summatv
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In this chaptera variery of circumstances in which children may be learning secondlanguages havebeenreviewed. Theseincluded the advantages ofearly bilinguals, and the differencesbetween informal and formal immersion contexts.It hasbeenpointed out that younger is not necessarily better when it comesto learning English as a secondlanguage,especially if the variables and circumstancesare not consideredcarefully.The next chapter will be devotEdto the discussion of factorsthat ensur. ih", in non-English environments learning English can still be a motivating and worthwhile experience, and children can make good progress in learning ro communicate in English.

Recommended readirg
Bachgroundtheory
Cummins,J. 2000. Language, Poruer and Pedagogy: Bilingual Childrenircthe Cro ssfre. Clevedon : Multilingual Matters. This book explores the necessary adjustments thar need to be made to mainstream curricttlum,instruction,and assessment as a resultof the fact