Language acquisition is the process whereby children acquire the capacity to identify and comprehend a language either native or a second language. Most young children learn a language through observation and listening and from there, they learn to copy what they hear and pronounce it. Young children learn to speak through sounds and vocabulary by imitating what the people around them speaks (Kuhl, 2010). Children are exposed to a language and this exposure helps them to be able to interact with the rest of the people. Children are not taught a language but they acquire it from the people around them at a tender age. A second language in early life affects the native language, both negatively and positively.
Kuhl states that, the development of a second language has become very popular all over the world today (Kuhl, 2010). Many people are growing up with appropriate resources in order to acquire a second language and this can be seen with increasing numbers of bilingual speakers. A second language acquisition is the study of how foreign languages are acquired by different people. The process of developing a second language is very similar to the process of acquiring the first language. Children acquire their native language at a very early age in their development. Just like they do acquire their first language at an early age, children can also develop their second languages at a very tender age. Second language acquisition in early life affects the native language.
The question of the best age to learn a second language has aroused many people’s curiosity with doubts on when to start teaching children a second language. However, it is believed that young children are the best in second language learning. Young children are not only taught the second language when they start going to school but learn it from the streets and interacting with other children more often. Learning a second language in kindergarten is the most effective way and beneficial practice in leading a child into speaking a second language. It is the most effective and a beneficial way because it helps the child learn the language faster and more easily during their first development years Kuhl, (2010). Moreover, it produces a higher quality of creative thinking and cognitive development in a child because they are able to learn it in the first years of their life. According to ( Marinova-Todd, Marshall and Snow, 2012), the earlier a child begins studying a second language, the better because the earlier they start learning the longer they will have to learn and the more progress they will make compared to those who start learning it at a later age in their lives. Hence, the effectual years of learning a second language are the early on years of a child’s development. Learning a second language in early life will help a learner become fluent in their first language and this is an advantage. Children learning to speak a second language never make grammatical mistakes and if an adult makes such mistakes, a child will notice easily than an adult. Brown asserts that, young children learning a second language are more conscious of language arbitrariness compared to adults learning a second language (Brown, 2000). The result of second language acquisition in children is very different in many respects from the outcome in adults. Children are faster in learning a second language because of the plasticity of their brains (Marinova-Todd, Marshall and Snow, 2012).
A child’s brain is considered to be plastic compared to that of an adult and it becomes rigid after the age of about nine. This gives a child an advantage of developing a reflex to switch from one language to the other without any confusion and therefore, it is best for a child to acquire a second language before the age of nine since it will be easier for him/her. According to Bialystok and Hakuta, the plasticity of the brain gives a child superior ability to acquire a language easily, be it native or a second language. They further state that, when the brain is already lateralized, language acquisition becomes more difficult compared to when the brain is still plastic (Bialystok and Hakuta, 1994).
According to Wagner, Spratt, and Ezzaki (1989), reading a second language has its pros and cons on the speech of a child. A child can either be impacted negatively or positively depending on how fast they learn the second language. Moreover, young children will have no problem when it comes to reading a second language because they adapt very fast. They become bilingual when there is need to communicate in two languages and easily revert back to monolingualism when there is no need. Reading a second language puts a child to an advantage other than a disadvantage. First, reading a second language gives a child a solid grasp on their first language. When a child reads a second language, they are able to understand the rules of both their native language and the second language. This double reinforcement leads to firm language and reading comprehension skills in a child. A second language helps change a child’s ability to communicate in their first language and they become effective in their native language. Moreover, it gives them better cognitive skills and this improves their reading capacity as they will learn to pronounce the words correctly. In addition, knowledge from the second language impacts the ability to manage information from the native language since the two languages blend making the learner become fluent in both languages. On the other hand, reading a second language can become very difficult because the sounds and pronunciations are very different in all languages and therefore they might end up even reading their own native language wrongly. Learning to read in L2 puts a child to a disadvantage because, learning to read in two languages is difficult due to inconsistent spellings compared to a person’s native language. However, according to Wagner, Spratt, and Ezzaki (1989) when a child learns to read his/her native language, it is easier for them to do so with the second language.
Age is regarded as an important factor in the second language acquisition (Kuhl, 2004). According to Kuhl, children enjoy an added advantage over adults in language learning due to their plasticity. Young children learn a second language very quickly compared to adults. Age defines the difference between L1 and L2 depending on the age a learner learned the language. In most cases, learners at no given time can achieve the same level of fluency and comprehension in their second language, as in the first language because it depends on when they started learning the second language and their level of formal education. Second language acquisition is divided into five stages depending on the age of the learner. These stages include; preproduction as the first stage, early production as the second stage, third stage is speech emergence, fourth stage is intermediate fluency and lastly, the advanced fluency (Scovel, 1999). In the pre-production stage, a child is not able to speak the second language, but has an idea about it. In the second stage which is early production, the learner is able to speak the second language in short phrases of one - two words and makes a lot of mistakes. This stage takes about six months in language acquisition. The third step which is speech emergence is when the learners’ vocabulary increases to about 3000 words and they can communicate in the second language using simple phrases but make plenty of grammatical mistakes (Scovel, 1999). This stage leads to intermediate fluency whereby the leaner is able to speak the language fluently and uses more vocabulary while communicating with the other speakers. The last and final stage is advanced fluency whereby the learner has progressed in the language and speaks fluently even with the native speakers of the second language. The learner at this stage is able to write and speak fluently with L2. These stages can be well achieved when a learner starts at an early age and progresses as he/she grows up. This way, a child is able to speak and write a second language without making grammatical mistakes in high school when he/she started learning the language at the kindergarten level.
Children at an early age learning a second language are able to reach the level of advanced fluency and achieve a native fluency level compared to adults. Age should be clearly regarded as an important factor in acquiring a second language. The critical period of development in children is the best time for a child to start learning a second language (Brown, 2000).
Conversely, age is not to be considered as the sole determining factor to a child’s success in learning a second language since children have different learning capabilities. Many factors can be taken into consideration. First, one should know why a learner is set to learn a second language and what their goals of learning that second language are (Kuhl, 2004). These two factors also highly determine the success and how fast the learner will be able to acquire the second language. The teachers of the second language should look for strategies to empower the learner and pay more attention on how best they can make the learner acquire L2 easily and faster regardless of their age and reason to acquire the language. The age of a learner can determine how successful they acquire a second language, but educators must consider the larger picture and adjust accordingly.
The exposure of L2 has a number of effects on the brain activity for language processing among preschoolers. According to a function magnetic resonance imaging study (FMRI) shows that children who speak multiple languages who were exposed to L2 in their early ages of life showed n difference between their L1 and L2 grammatical processing (Birdsong, 1999). Furthermore, the study also revealed that, bilinguals exposed to the second language after 6 years of age needed higher brain activation for grammatical processing meaning they have to start acquiring the second language at a very early age.
There is a difference between preschoolers and adults in second language learning. Preschoolers learn a second language faster because they will interact daily with children who speak different languages and with the plasticity of their brains, they will be able to learn it faster than adults. Moreover, brain activities of preschoolers assimilate language easily, because they have the ability to switch faster from one language to the other without any confusion compared to adults.
There are a number of theories of language acquisition. Many researchers on this topic have acknowledged that both nature and nurture plays a significant role in language acquisition be in L1 or L2. However, a good number of them emphasize the influences of age on language acquisition, while others emphasize learning and biological influences. Kuhl (2010) states that, children’s ability to understand a certain language widens faster than their ability to speak that language. He adds that, it is very easier if they start in their early years of life. When a mother tells her 16 month old child to put the cup on the table, they will follow the instructions even though they are not able to repeat what has been said. Children at the age of two-five years are very fast in the second language acquisition since their mastery skills are fast. As children grow up, they learn a lot of things in their development stage, and it is the same way they can learn a second language and become fluent in the language.
In conclusion, the topic of second language acquisition in early life has both negative and positive effects on a child. First, if the child acquires a second language in their early life, they will be fluent in the language and will make few mistakes compared to adults. In addition, they will be able to become more fluent in their native language as they will learn more about speaking in both languages. Conversely, learning a second language can affect a child negatively in a way that they can end up forgetting their native language, thus declining the native language proficiency in the learner. Moreover, they can also make mistakes in school as they will mix their first and second language while speaking and doing class work. In addition, Birdsong (1999) stated that, a second language affects the native language because learners might end up borrowing the accent from the second language to their native language and this affects how people will interpret what they are talking about. Most learners will assume that both languages operate the same and this might affect their native language. It is important for a learner to learn the second language in their early life. Moreover, it is also imperative to make sure that they are fluent in both languages in order to excel in school and avoid missing the two languages. Learning a second language in early life affects the native language in pronunciation. Learners will have pronunciation problems in their native language since most second languages like English have different sounds and sound distinctions which are not present in other languages. Therefore, learning a second language affects the native language.
Works Cited
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Bialystok, E. and Hakuta, K. (1994). In Other Words. New York: Basic Books, A Division of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.
Birdsong, David. (1999). Second Language Acquisition and the Critical Period Hypothesis
New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers.
Marinova-Todd, S.F., Marshall, D.B. and Snow, C.E. (2012). Three Misconceptions About age and L2 Learning. TESOL Quarterly 34, 1: 9-34.
Brown, Douglas H. (2000). Principles of Language Learning and Teaching (Fourth Edition).
New York: Addison Wesley Longman, Inc.
Wagner, D, Spratt, J. and Ezzaki, A. (1989). Does learning to read in a second language always put the child at a disadvantage? Some counterevidence from morocco. 10(01), 31-48. Retrieved from
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Kuhl, P. (2004). Early language acquisition: cracking the speech code. doi: 10.1038/nrn1533Retrieved from http://www.nature.com/nrn/journal/v5/n11/abs/nrn1533.html
Kuhl, P (2010). Brain mechanisms in early language acquisition. 67(05), 713-727. Retrieved from http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0896627310006811
