Tradiling

Research findings on the critical period may influence educational policy and practice. Over recent years, many Catalan primary schools have lowered the starting age of foreign language learning and start teaching English in early childhood education (1). However, making pedagogical decisions solely on the basis of research on the critical period is problematic. In this article, we take a closer look at the issue.

The hypothesis that there is a critical period in life to learn a language was first proposed by the Canadian neurologists Penfield and Roberts in 1959. The hypothesis was then popularized by the linguist and neurologist Eric H. Lenneberg in his 1967 book “Biological Foundations of Language.” Lenneberg speculated that the critical period hypothesis not only affected first language acquisition, but could also be extended to second language acquisition. According to the critical period hypothesis, language can be acquired only within a critical period, extending from early infancy until puberty. The hypothesis is untestable for first language acquisition because no child can be intentionally deprived of language for experimental purposes. However, documented cases of feral children, victims of severe abuse, neglect and social isolation, such as Victor or Genie, deaf children of hearing parents, and children recovering from aphasia and language disorders lead us to believe that acquisition of a language is guaranteed up to the age of six, but then steadily compromised until puberty. After puberty, acquisition is rare. Some aspects of language will be learned but full mastery will not be achieved. The reason behind the critical period is thought to be of a biological (or maturational) nature and related to neurophysiological changes in the brain that allow, for example, the creation of more complex neural networks early in life (Long, 2007). Continue reading →