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How Early We Start Teaching

First Language Effectively?
Aisyah Fajrin -  20322014
Elsa Megi Rahmadani – 20322011
Irma Mega Utami – 20322074
Nindi Assabila Tawrofie – 20322049
Kemal Athallah Chandra Putra – 20322069
Arif Alvary – 20322009
How early can we efficiently start teaching a foreign language? 

 The advantages of speaking more than one language have motivated human behavior
since antiquity. Initially, people had to learn a foreign language if they lived near the borders
or if they used to trade goods frequently with people from other parts. Later, learning a
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foreign language became a measure of the education level among people from upper
classes of society. Arguably, today’s globalization makes it a ‘must’ (e.g. English for almost
any scientific field) or ‘good practice’ (e.g. Chinese for the business world) for most people
to speak an internationally recognized and accepted language. Many urban schools face a
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high demand from parents to offer language education programs to children before that
age. According to data provided courtesy of Cluj County School District, based on a sample
of 13 elementary schools from Cluj-Napoca, 100% of the 1st and 2nd grade classes (70 out
of 70) offered optional foreign language courses in the 2011– 2012 school year. Out of the
70 courses, two offered German, two offered French and 66 offered English. The demand
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for foreign language classes starts as early as kindergarten. At the time of writing this
article, all accredited private kindergartens in Cluj-Napoca offered foreign language
programs in one or two languages and most state-funded kindergartens offered optional
foreign language classes as well. This trend seems to be consistent across most
Europeans countries, especially in those whose official language is not English. According
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to Special Eurobarometer 243 (2006), the majority of survey participants believed that age
six is the best age to start learning a foreign language, and 77% thought that children
should learn English as their first foreign language
How early can we efficiently start teaching a foreign language? 
Learning a foreign language in early childhood can occur under various distinct circumstances.
Many studies have focused on immigrant or minority children learning a second language while
they are immersed in a non-native language speaking environment, and on children raised in
bilingual families. There is also an important body of literature addressing the impact of foreign
language education activities on the linguistic development of pre-school children when the target
language is not accessible to the child outside the educational setting. The purpose of the
following literature review is to compile empirical evidence from the fields of language learning and
early childhood development that indicates the strong and the weak points of early foreign
language education. The article focuses on discussing the efficiency of foreign language activities
within a hypothetical limited curriculum schedule. What is the best decision to be made by school
personnel (e.g. tea chers, principals) and parents if they need to choose the most appropriate
elective weekly activity for a group of five-year-olds in a specific time frame (e.g. Mondays from
4:00 to 4:40 PM, throughout the whole second semester)? Is it more beneficial for the children to
experience a formal language activity aimed at teaching a foreign language or would their time be
spent more efficiently by participating in a culinary arts program, where they could develop basic
cooking skills, assuming that both activities have the same priority? Most literature use the concept
of ‘efficiency’ in terms of ‘rate of acquisition’, i.e. speed, and level of attainment (e.g. De Knop,
Boers, and De Rycker 2010, 5–6), but not in terms of avoiding waste. In this article, the term
‘efficiency’ will be used to describe the degree in which foreign language instructional activities
‘promote learning while at the same time avoiding unnecessary effort or complexity. More
precisely, the term efficiency here refers to the ratio between the investment (e.g. children’s time,
attention, energy) and foreign language attainment indicators over a certain period of time.
 BILINGUALISM : ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES
ADVANTAGES

The first methodological Orous study on the differences between monolingual and bilingual subjects
was conducted by Peal and Lambert in 1962. They both proved that bilinguals have higher cognitive skills
than monolinguals. In another study conducted by Kovelman, showed that bilinguals use more brain
resources compared to monolinguals when processing the information they encounter, and their brains do
not replace existing resources and are responsible for other cognitive activities.
Speaking more than one language can also help children gain a better understanding of
communication. Genesse, Tucker, and Lambert show different sensitivity in interpersonal communication
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skills between bilingual and monolingual. Another proven advantage of bilinguals is the fact that they are
able to perform superiorly on attention tests and have better inhibitory control for ignoring perceptual
information compared to monolinguals.
Mastering a second language can also facilitate further foreign language learning, Bialystok, Craik,
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and Freedman suggest that speaking more than one language can slow the aging process of the brain.
Adesope concluded that bilingualism can improve children's attention, abstract and symbolic
representation skills, working memory, and metalinguistic awareness.
 BILINGUALISM : ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES
DISADVANTAGES

Speaking a second language can improve social attitudes, and change interpersonal and intergroup
perceptions. In particular, subjects who speak a foreign language may develop more positive attitudes toward
native speakers of that foreign language.
Learning a second language also has negative aspects, one of the barriers for children who speak more
than one language is the so-called first language friction. First language friction is an active inhibition
phenomenon that helps speakers ignore native language concepts so that they can more easily focus on the
foreign language concepts they need to use. Sometimes their first language swipes without successfully
mastering the second language proficiently.
Bilingual children also tend to have smaller vocabularies in both languages compared to their
monolingual counterparts. Another study showed that bilinguals needed more time to identify the meaning of a
concept correctly, even though they could not find the right word. Yan and Nichiladis explain why bilinguals can
be more hesitant in making certain decisions which can sometimes increase the ability to stutter.
  Early foreign language education 
Parents who choose to emphasize second language education for their children may be right to do so, given the
many benefits of bilingualism. 

Younger = better vs. older = better

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Children can distinguish different languages ​from the
Newport (1991) also argues that cognitive immaturity helps
prenatal period. Byers-Heinlein, Burns, and Werker
children learn foreign languages ​more quickly than adults.
(2010) Investigated language preference and
discrimination in newborns and showed that when Add Contents Title
mothers consistently speak two languages ​during
pregnancy, infants show language recognition and
The hypothesis originally formulated by Lenneberg (1967)
preference for both languages ​immediately after birth. 
states that first language acquisition needs to develop no later
than puberty, in order to reach an optimal level of
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development. 
Learning a second language early may be justified by theories
explaining that certain cognitive abilities diminish over time,
such as language learning capacity, due to lack of use once
Ruben's (1997) study of children with
the primary language is acquired, loss of neural plasticity in the transient hearing loss before 12 months of
brain or loss of 'Universal Grammar' as described by Chomsky age reached a more dramatic conclusion.
(Birdsong 1999, 2-9).
  Early foreign language education 
Parents who choose to emphasize second language education for their children may be right to do so, given the
many benefits of bilingualism. 

Younger = better vs. older = better

Add Contents Title

To test this hypothesis, the authors conducted a
language performance assessment of immigrants
arriving in Canada and the United States, and
compared the results with the age of arrival of
subjects from those countries. This scoring method
verifies pronunciation, oral comprehension and
grammatical accuracy. Studies have shown that
age plays a more important role in phonetic
development than the acquisition of morphology
and syntax.
Johnson and Newport (1989) show that the decline in
the rate of acquisition of second language
pronunciation is linear starting with age seven,
whereas 710 DD Dolean Downloaded by [ECU
Libraries] at 10:40 January 23, 2016 Another study
(Long 1990) shows that second language will be
spoken without a foreign accent if mastery begins at
the age of six years will almost always be spoken with
a foreign accent if mastery begins after age 12, and
will have varying degrees.
 Immersion In Kindergarten

“ An important body of research has shown that children can learn a foreign language as early as
kindergarten while being immersed in a school environment where activities are being held in the target
(second) language. In these programs, the foreign language is learned implicitly while children develop
specific skills and competencies (e.g. to group objects by shape). Many studies conducted in Canada
reported successful language immersion programs (for a review see Safty 1988; Genesee and Jared
2008). He indicated that anglophone kindergarten children started by receiving instructions and following
directions in French while answering back and talking to their peers in English. Only after about three
semesters were they encouraged to make comments in French. Eventually, the use of French increased
gradually, so that by middle school about half of the subjects were taught in French only. This approach is
consistent with Krashen and Terrell’s (1983) suggestions that beginning foreign language learners need a
silent period (pre-production language learning stage) when they only respond nonverbally to instructions
made by teachers in the foreign language. The authors indicate that the silent period can extend over
several months after the child was first immersed in a foreign language speaking environment.
“
 Immersion In Kindergarten
An important body of research has shown that children can learn a foreign language as early as
kindergarten while being immersed in a school environment where activities are being held in the
target (second) language. Research indicates that children immersed in a foreign language
environment may show initial delays in the development of their native language skills, but they
eventually catch up with their non-immersion peers after several years (Turnbull, Hart, and
Lapkin2003) and their literacy skills, such as reading comprehension and reading fluency, will later
benefit from cross-language transfer (Gebauer, Zaunbauer, and Mole 2013). Many studies
conducted in Canada reported successful language immersion programs, Among the first
longitudinal research assessing the efficiency of such a program was conducted by
Genesse(1978). 

The success of Canadian immersion programs might be partially explained by the fact that both
English and French are official languages under Canadian Constitution,which motivates school
officials and parents to emphasize the importance of second language learning. Positive findings
were documented by the Early Language and Intercultural Acqui-sition Studies (ELIAS) program,
which involved six project preschools from Germany,Belgium and Sweden. The research results
show clear evidence that it is feasible for children to start to learn a second language in a pre-
school context, using immersion methods. Elvin, Maagerø, and Simonsen (2007)described a
successful partial immersion program in Norway where an Englishnative language speaker
developed a two sessions per week program for three- to six-year-olds.
Immersion In Kindergarten
The positive linguistic outcomes of early language immersion programs suggests that those
programs might need to be developed on a larger scale for the goal of bilin-gual education.
Generally, studies regarding the optimal starting age of immersion programs have produced mixed
results. On the one hand, some studies indicated that students immersed in a second language
speaking environment at a later age, soon made up the difference in linguistic skills between them
and their peers who had been immersed in a second language speaking environment at an earlier
age, On the other hand, there is evidence that early immersion students outper-form late immersion
students even in the long run.
As mentioned above, research indicates that immersion students benefit from cross-language
academic transfers and will catch up with their peers in the long run.However, Bialystok (2008)
emphasizes the fact that children’s success in school is strongly dependent on their instructional
language proficiency. When Barac and Bia-lystok (2012) compared six-year-old English speaking
monolinguals with bilinguals,they found that the latter group performed similarly and even exceeded
monolinguals on the executive control tasks; on the language tasks, however, bilinguals whose
language of instruction was the same language as the language of testing had the best
performance. Therefore, instructing students in a foreign language might diminish their academic
performance, at least in the short term.
 "A natural foreign language environment can help children
have long-term benefits in acquiring a second language. A
successful immersion program in kindergarten can help chil
dren develop skills in a foreign language and need not aim
at helping them “
learn a foreign language explicitly
 Discussion

The data presented above require a clear distinction between the different types of psychological mechanisms involved in
acquiring a second language, foreign language learning is done explicitly, whereas immersion type programs address foreign
language education implicitly. Foreign language lessons provide knowledge, which should be taken up by the speaker
consciously using declarative memory. Immersion type programs focus on developing foreign language skills, which are automatic
and the retrieval depends on procedural memory. While explicitly taught foreign language lessons can be assessed fairly
accurately using knowledge-based tests, retrieving language skills and knowledge from procedural memory is not an equally easy
task. Therefore, enrolling children in a kindergarten foreign language program with the primary aim of learning a second language
and then honing foreign language skills using knowledge-based tests may be a difficult if not impossible measurement task to do
accurately (e.g. name the animal you studied today in kindergarten).

When we set goals for mastering a second language, we need to consider the conversational/academic differences in
achieving language proficiency introduced by Cummins (1979). While Basic Interpersonal Communicative Skills (BICS), or social
languages, are considered attainable in two to three years, Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency (CALP), also known as
academic languages, takes five to seven years to master.
 Discussion

While a total immersion program may carry a risk that students will not have the best academic experience
due to their lack of understanding of the meaning of new concepts (e.g., teaching the concept of triangles for
the first time in a foreign language, will not have an equivalent translation in the native language), the program
partial immersion (teaching only certain subjects) may eliminate that risk.

while using concepts in a foreign language that students are already familiar with in their mother tongue. When
kindergarten children are engaged in activities aimed at developing specific age-related skills (e.g. tone
discrimination through songs, or hand-eye coordination through connecting dots), their time can be considered
to be used efficiently.

These programs will develop phonemic awareness, vocabulary and general communication skills, facilitating
later acquisition of a second language.
Thank you
Any questions?