CHILDREN ARE BETTER LEARNERS OF SECOND LANGUAGES THAN ADULTS
By Fan Zhang
3 WEEKS PRE-SESSIONAL ENGLISH LANGUAGE PROGRAMMES
CARDIFF UNIVERSITY
The international communicate became so frequent today, almost everyone want to become a successful foreign learner, but the results are often unsatisfactory. Therefore, many learners regret that they began to learn second language too late, if they start learning as a childhood, and certainly will master a foreign language successfully. This is because children have more advantages than adults. They can learn faster than adults, and the level of foreign language may be close to their mother-tongue level ultimately.
Firstly, there are some reasons that younger learners can handle the second languages faster. To begin with, it can be clearly seen that about the second language impact of increased age, the generally accepted explanation is “critical period” by lenneberg (1967). Accounting to this hypothesis, learners can accept a new language more easily than any other time when they were in 10 to 12-years-old. Because the development of brain during this period has not ended yet, the brain is more malleable and flexible, so the students can absorb the new language quickly and easily. In addition, younger learners are happy to make mistakes, comparing with the adults, they are less language anxious, and as a result they are easier to accept a new language. For example, a child aged nine may view his language learning class as a classroom language-game, and they will be a positive attitude towards the class and feel enjoyable. In other words, the whole process of learning will be delighted. “A person who works in a happy and enjoyable way will realize efficiency gains.” This is the message given by Jonathan Rees, Deputy Chief Executive of the Health and Safety Executive (HSE). So, because of children treat the class as a kind of game that children can learn second language more easily and efficiency....