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Why is there so little research? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Philological Room |  | |
| Ogrim Heptaglot Senior Member France Joined 4624 days ago 991 posts - 1896 votes  Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, French, Romansh, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Catalan, Latin, Greek, Romanian | Message 17 of 81 04 February 2014 at 2:52pm | IP Logged | |||||
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There might not be a lot of serious empirical research into the "best" way to study a language (but some not-so-serious research, as emk shows with his examples), however there is a lot of research that has been done on second-language acquisition as well as in how to improve language teaching. I would recommend that anyone interested explore the site of the European Centre for Modern Languages in Graz. This is where the CEFR was put together, and a look at their list of publications gives you an idea of the type of research that has been undertaken within the framework of the Centre's programme. You might not find THE study telling you what is the best method, but there sure is a lot of quality research that has been done into various aspects of language learning and language teaching.
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| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5415 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 18 of 81 04 February 2014 at 4:04pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I really disagree with these sweeping generalizations about the lack of research on second language acquisition.
Quite the contrary, there is a ton of research on the topic. Every major university in the world has a second- language teaching department in the Faculty of education, and these departments are not exactly sitting on their hands. Just think about the vast amount of work being done on the teaching of English. Think of the teaching materials that are published every year, mostly in English and on English of course. The development of French immersion teaching in Canada is a textbook example of a small research project from McGill University in the late 60s that blossomed into a highly successful national educational strategy. What is certainly true, and of relevance for us, is that there is very little research on independent language learning. All the research looks at the classroom situation because this is of most interest to educations systems. The focus is on teaching languages to school children and to immigrant adults. Language hobbyists and amateurs like us here at HTLAL are a category apart and of little interest to researchers. A subject polyglottery, for example, is of very little interest to researchers because it is so removed from the needs of the education system. I don't think that the researchers would have major disagreements with many of the ideas or suggestions that we see here at HTLAL. Who can be against immersion, L-R, bilingual texts, wordlists, ANKI, watching subtitled movies and TV programs, shadowing, etc.? Transposing that to a classroom with 25 kids is another story. 5 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5415 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 19 of 81 04 February 2014 at 4:30pm | IP Logged | |||||
I don't think that any research claims that adult second language acquisition is impossible. What all researchers and ordinary people like ourselves have observed is the basic fact that after the approximate age of 13-15 it is very rare to find individuals who have achieved very high levels of spoken second language proficiency. Some people believe in the critical period hypothesis, others think there is something else, but the fact remains, adults very rarely achieve the same level of native-like speaking proficiency of those adults who started as young children. But there are those rare adults who do achieve very good results and some sound native-like. How do they do it? It's a combination of a few things: 1) massive exposure through immersion, 2) daily interaction with a spouse, partner or significant other and extended family members or friends in the target language, and 3) deliberate formal study. For example, hollywood actors achieve great results in various accents by working many hours with dialect coaches. Here is what the study cited by emk says: " Although there does seem to be differences in the ability of individual adults to learn a second language, any adult of reasonable abilities, if given enough time, enough opportunity, and--most importantly--having enough desire, can learn to communicate in any language. But the degree of eventual fluency achieved will differ considerably from individual to individual, unlike the situation with child language acquisition (where every child achieves perfect fluency given enough exposure). Successful adult language learners usually learn language through conscious effort--deliberate learning-- rather than acquire it passively without a significant amount of deliberate intellectual effort as do children. Motivation is an important factor in language learning, and societies that praise or emphasize the value of multilingualism will increase the motivation level of learners and thus increase the success of second language learning in general--Hungary being a case in point (since Hungarian is so unlike all of the surrounding European languages, that small country has encouraged multilingualism.) " 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| beano Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4607 days ago 1049 posts - 2152 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Russian, Serbian, Hungarian | Message 20 of 81 04 February 2014 at 4:39pm | IP Logged | |||||
I think it's nonsense to say you can't learn a language effectively once you hit adolescence. There are many adults who have successfully learned a second language to a high level, without having started as a young kid. Regarding the theory about Hungary promoting multilingualism. Believe me, there are plenty of Magyar monoglots. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Elexi Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5550 days ago 938 posts - 1840 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, German, Latin | Message 21 of 81 04 February 2014 at 4:53pm | IP Logged | |||||
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The whole premise of the OP question is flawed. One only need type a few words into
Google scholar to realise that there is a ton of research on the subject: http://scholar.google.co.uk/scholarq=adult+second+language+a cquisition&hl=en&as_sdt=0&as _vis=1&oi=scholart&sa=X&ei=mQzxUo2tH6fD7Aa70oBI&ved=0CCwQgQM wAA 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5517 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 22 of 81 04 February 2014 at 6:20pm | IP Logged | |||||
I dispute this claim. If it's hard to find those adults, it's because people are either (a) grossly underestimating what's required for successful language acquisition at any age or (b) they're looking in the wrong place. Specifically: 1. It's relatively straightforward for an adult to reach B2, at least when moving between languages in the western European Sprachbund. 2. Given 3 to 5 years of round-the-clock immersion, virtually all university-educated adults will become highly proficient speakers of their L2. Here, "highly proficient" means C2 speaking and listening comprehension, bordering on near-native in daily life. These observations are based on living next to major research university, and observing many immigrants who arrived with B2/C1 English to pursue PhDs, post docs, and research. When these students arrive, some of them are definitely in the B2 range. Some even struggle with one-on-one conversation. But given 5 years, they all seem to speak perfectly acceptable English. Sure, most of them have accents, but nobody cares—we have native speakers from the southern and western US whose accents are thicker than those of the foreign students. (It's possible I'm seeing some survivor bias—perhaps some students never reach an acceptable level of English, and they leave, biasing my observations. There's also presumably a bias from the fact that I'm observing English skills, and most of these students have spent 10 years or so slowly crawling to B2 starting in late childhood. But they certainly do not sound remotely native when they arrive in their 20s.) On some theoretical level, I suppose it's interesting that the foreign students never sound quite like native speakers, or like kids who immigrated at age 7. But that's sort of like saying most people from Mississippi still sound slightly southern after 25 years in New England. Sure, they never sound quite local. But who cares? As for the time required, five years of immersion sounds like a lot, but as Stephen Krashen points out (IIRC), a young child who's immersed in a new language at school will often require 3 to 7 years to reach the same level of proficiency as their native peers. Natural language acquisition is quick at first, but reaching near-native levels without explicit study takes time, at any age. And well, most kids do study to some extent. That's what school is for. So personally, I do suspect that kids have certain biological advantages, particularly with regard to accent (and other things like French gender). But most of the "adults don't learn languages to a high level" thing is simply because most adults avoid spending 5 years in full immersion. And even if they do, they still generally sound like they're From Away, as rural New Englanders traditionally put it. 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| beano Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4607 days ago 1049 posts - 2152 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Russian, Serbian, Hungarian | Message 23 of 81 04 February 2014 at 7:46pm | IP Logged | |||||
I remember a bilingual education officer telling me that a child plunged into immersion can be functionally fluent in 1-2 years but true academic fluency requires far longer. I raised this issue here and some people made comments along the lines of, they're just kids, they don't need to quote Shakespeare etc. But I've seen Polish children who on the surface appear to speak good English after 18 months in the UK but their ability nosedives when asked to produce a written reasoned argument. Of course, a bright foreign kid might outperform native stragglers relatively quickly but in general the language gap is a large one. Like you say, comparatively few adults experience true immersion. Many people who move to a new country will still live parts of their lives in their native tongue. But I believe that people will learn if they are in a situation where they have to, irrespective of age. Which is the situation many kids are in. You simply cannot function in a school and among your peers unless you embrace the surrounding language. Adults may find get-out clauses. People make (in my mind) bizarre statements, like those who learn as adults never truly lose their native accents and that minor grammatical errors may persist. This totally ignores the fact that getting to this level in the first place is a huge achievement. Most people don't even think about changing their accents, they simply try to speak in a way that enables smooth understanding. We do this in our native tongue as well. A Scotsman moving to Canada doesn't think, oh I better ditch the scottish brogue and try to imitate someone from Ottawa. I'm not sure if being university educated makes it easier to acquire a foreign language. I think plain old immersion is the biggest factor, ramped up considerably if you live in an environment where the locals will not or cannot switch to your native tongue. I notice in Germany that many highly-educated people speak English confidently but this plummets drastically when you spend time among ordinary working people. There may be an argument that staying away from academic influences actually accelerates your language learning, in an everyday context at least. Edited by beano on 04 February 2014 at 7:46pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| ScottScheule Diglot Senior Member United States scheule.blogspot.com Joined 5213 days ago 645 posts - 1176 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Latin, Hungarian, Biblical Hebrew, Old English, Russian, Swedish, German, Italian, French | Message 24 of 81 04 February 2014 at 7:58pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I suspect most of us are inclined to downplay the importance of the critical period. Why? Because we want to learn languages, and the idea that our ability to learn language has greatly decreased since leaving adolescence is depressing. So we're primed to latch on to anecdotal evidence that would contradict the critical period hypothesis, to pick at research that supports it, to downplay the advantage children have as being little more than mastery of an accent.
I certainly would prefer the critical period not exist. Alas, it seems to. Edited by ScottScheule on 04 February 2014 at 7:59pm 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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