AGE

It has been popularly assumed that age

itself is a predictor of second language
proficiency, that younger acquirers are
better at second language acquisition than
older acquirers. It can be argued,
however, that age is not in itself a
predictor of second language rate or
attainment, and that here too everything
reduces down to the quantity of
comprehensible input and the level of the
affective filter.
Krashen, Long, and Scarcella
(1979) reviewed the available
empirical research on the effect
of age and second language
acquisition and concluded that
all published studies were
consistent with these three
generalization.
 Three Generalization

1 Adults proceed
2 3 Acquirers who
begin natural
through the early Older children
stages of second exposure to second
acquire faster languages during
language
than younger childhood generally
development faster
than children do
children, time achieve higher
(where time and and exposure second language
exposure are held held constant. proficiency than
constant). those beginning as
adults.
Scarcella and Higa (forthcoming) found that
younger acquirers actually received "simpler"
input in a block building task, a result that
confirms observations made by Wagner-Gough
and Hatch (1975), and that seems to predict
greater speed for younger, and not older
acquirers. Scarcella and Higa noted that the
older acquirers (adolescents) were better able to
regulate both the quantity and quality of their
input.
 A d u l t s h a v e me a n s
of
producing language earli
er, of
" b e a t i n g t h e S i l e n t Pe
riod",
m e a n s t h a t h a v e n o th i n g
to d o
with natural lan gu age
a c q u i si t i o n b u t t h a t
ma y
nevertheless help them
participate in conversatio
n an d
hence obtain comprehe
n sib le
i n p u t.
Monitor use is only possible after the acquirer has
undergone formal operations, a stage in cognitive
development that generally occurs at about puberty
(Inhelder and Piaget, 1958). The availability of the
conscious grammar, the Monitor, allows adults to
produce formally acceptable utterances using first
language rules repaired by the Monitor, as discussed
earlier in this chapter. While the use of this mode does
not require comprehensible input, it helps the acquirer
to talk early, to participate in conversations, and thereby
obtain input, at least some of which will be
comprehensible.
 Both explanations for the older acquirers' rate
superiority reduce to the greater ability of the adult
and older child to obtain comprehensibly input.
Thus, comprehensible input again is hypothesized
to be the causative variable, and not age per se.

The child's superiority in ultimate attainment has

been hypothesized to be due to the strengthening of
the affective filter at about puberty, an event that
may also be related to formal operations (Krashen,
1981).
 Advantages
It claims that child-adult
Second, it is consistent
differences in attainment are
with the claim that adults
not due to any change in the
are still "acquirers", that
"language acquisition
they retain the natural
device" (LAD) but are due to
language acquisition
the filter, a factor that is, in a
capacity children have.
sense, external to the LAD.
THA
NK
YOU